Three Kids On A Raft
by hexagonstorm4
Summary: You and both of your super cool best friends have finally finished building that raft, and you're just about ready to go look for other worlds. It's gonna be the greatest adventure ever, and nothing bad is going to happen to any of you, at all. (A novelization/reimagining of Kingdom Hearts.)
1. Sunset on Destiny Islands

**A/N, which you should actually read:** Hey there! This is a novelization/re-imagining of Kingdom Hearts by two long-time fans. A lot of things are different here - some crossover characters are new or removed, for instance - so if you want something that's basically just a clear retelling of the story, maybe look somewhere else. If you want something that will occasionally surprise you, though, give it a shot.

We have two main reasons for various things being different from canon Kingdom Hearts. First, to make the story make more sense as prose; a lot of things about Kingdom Hearts work beautifully because it's an adventure game, but when you try to present any of it in the very specific way that a novelization requires, you run into problems. You run into more problems than you ever dreamed existed. And second, frankly, there are some characters/worlds/things in Kingdom Hearts that were fun to play through but we just didn't find interesting to explore in this fic. We have nothing against that content, we just wanted to do something different, so don't be shocked to see different characters, new plot beats, and a lot of expanded backstories in various places. We ask only that you keep in mind that we've put a lot of thought into all of this, especially some of the weirder and more surprising parts, and if something doesn't make sense taken with canon, please assume we made that decision intentionally. We promise we are not being careless with lore.

If all of that sounds good to you, great! We hope you a have good time exploring this wonderful, horrible multiverse with us. May your heart be your guiding key.

\- hexagonstorm and _rainyweather, co-authors

_P.S. _The fic is cross-posted on AO3 under the same title and handle. I think the formatting is nicer over there, but feel free to read it wherever you want.

_P.P.S._ We don't want to spoil plans for character relationships, but there will eventually be pretty much all types of romance, including M/M, M/F, and F/F, so if any of that would be an issue for you, maybe steer clear.

* * *

**(sora)**

You wake up with your face smooshed into the sand, hot and rough and grainy against your cheek, with your head full of fuzz and half-memories.

What _was_ that dream you were having? You were in... some weird place, all dark shadows and huge panes of stained glass, like a church without walls or a ceiling. And there were _things_ there too, weren't there? Weird, eerie things, swarming at the edges of the dark.

But what was that dream even about? Dang it, you wish you were better at remembering dreams. They always feel so important, and you're lucky if anything is left of them five minutes later other than just a vague impression.

"Sora! Wake up already!"

You blink and shake the last bits of sleep from your head like a dog that just got out of the water, sit upright and look out at the water. Riku's little kayak boat is drifting toward the shore, and he sounds exasperated enough that this probably wasn't the first time he yelled to you today. Kairi's there, too, balanced on the back and carrying a huge bag in her lap.

Oh yeah, _that's_ what you were doing today. You're finishing the raft! Well, hopefully you're finishing it. You're at least gonna try.

Riku gets the kayak tied up at the docks, and both of them hop off, Riku running ahead to the beach. He looks so excited that it kinda reminds you of when you were both a lot younger.

"Let's get to work," he says instantly. "If we really push ourselves, maybe we can take the boat on its maiden voyage tonight."

"It's not a boat, it's a raft." You can't believe this is even still a discussion.

"A raft is flat. It's raft-shaped. This is a boat."

"It's not! If you tie a bunch of wooden stuff together, that's a raft, and this is like, three boats tied together, so it's a raft made of boats."

"Oh my God, Sora, we're not having this argument again. It's a boat. Rafts are stupid. If we got on a raft out there, we'd all die, which is why we're making a _boat."_

"I think it can be a boat _and_ a raft," Kairi says. Riku rolls his eyes.

"You know what? If we finish the thing today, then I don't care what it is. I'm ready to get this show on the road."

Kairi stares at Riku for a second, a weird look on her face that you can't quite pin down. Then she sighs and sets her bag down on the sand.

"Hey, Kairi, what's in the bag?" Whatever it is, you probably all planned for it, but remembering plans isn't exactly your specialty.

"Oh, I bought us some food and other stuff from the store. My grandma gave me some money for doing well at school, so I was able to get a pretty healthy selection of rations."

She holds it open, revealing a bunch of different snacks you don't recognize, you guess because they're all supposed to be good for you.

"See, there's stuff from a couple of different food groups, and I made sure to bring things with lots of vitamin C, too."

You just nod. Somehow, you don't think you'll all be out there long enough to worry about scurvy, but it's probably good that somebody's putting this much thought into everything anyway.

"I'll carry that," you say, because it's definitely too heavy for her, and if you _ask_ her if she wants help, she'll just say no and then wear herself out trying too hard. It's not a super long way to the cave where you've been keeping your raft-boat parts, but it's a lot longer when you're hauling supplies.

"Oh... are you sure that's-"

"Yeah, of course." You cut her off before she can overthink it and take the bag before she can get any dumb ideas. "Alright then, let's go finish this raft."

"This _boat._ Hey, Sora, race you there!"

"Wait, what - aw, c'mon, I'm carrying stuff!" But it's too late. He's already sprinting off into the distance.

Oh well. It's not like you were going to win anyway.

* * *

A couple of hours later, things are actually going great. You've got a bunch of the big soda bottles cleaned out so they can hold fresh water, and the food is packed up pretty good.

The raft is three big canoes and a sail that you're going to rig together into one really crude catamaran. The canoes are canoes you saved up for and bought from people who had busted canoes they wanted to get rid of, and you've been keeping them hidden here in your scary cave while you fixed them up.

The sail's from a totally different busted boat, but Riku called the seller out on the fact that it was the only usable part of the whole thing, and he ended up getting them to sell you just that part. Riku can be pretty convincing when he needs to be.

Everything's almost ready to be assembled, now. It's pretty exciting, even if it's always kinda weird working on stuff here in the scary cave. The scary cave is always weird, though.

None of the other kids want to go anywhere near the scary cave, so it pretty much belongs to the three of you; the door in there freaks people out, and it's dark and spooky, and It Just Feels Weird In There. But Riku's never seemed to notice anything off about it at all, and you think being in a scary place is kinda fun actually, and Kairi... Well, Kairi's at least a good sport about it.

Then again, Kairi's a good sport about everything.

The sealant you've been slathering on the boats is finally dry, so everybody hauls them out onto the beach to test them in the water. The other kids, who have been hanging out here in the sunlight where there are zero scary doors, are just kinda loitering on the beach, practicing with their swords and/or other weapons as usual. You wave to Tidus when you happen to catch his eye.

"Great. We definitely needed a bunch of random people knowing about the boat," Riku mumbles unhappily, and now it's your turn to roll your eyes. What does he think is gonna happen? That they'll tell on you or something? No way.

"Hey, guys, what are you up to?"

Oh, wow, where did Vanille come from? You'd swear she was all the way over there swinging around her weird staff thing, but here she is.

"We're testing our canoes for leaks! Then we're gonna tie 'em together and make a raft!" Out of the corner of your eye, Riku turns to glare at you like you've just betrayed him somehow.

"Oh, cool. What're you gonna do with it?"

"Ah, y'know... raft stuff."

She nods wisely.

"Need any help testing them?"

"No," Riku says firmly, at the exact second you say "Sure, thanks!" Vanille waves over Tidus and Rinoa, who wander down the beach to see what's going on.

"Heyy, you guys making a raft?" Tidus gets it immediately.

"I think that's more of a boat," Rinoa says without missing a beat.

"What're you gonna do with it? Rafting?"

"Yes, Tidus," Riku says. "We're going rafting on our boat."

"Seems a little counter-intuitive, but I guess I shouldn't judge," Vanille says. Riku shoots her a dark glare. "So where are you all headed?"

"Around," Riku says vaguely. "Nowhere special."

Tidus looks disappointed. Vanille and Rinoa immediately exchange a Look.

"Anyway, Sora, we need to figure out a good way to stress test these boat parts. Is there anything heavy around here?"

"We could help, you know," Vanille says, maybe a little bit smugly.

"That'd be _great,"_ you say, before anybody picks a fight. "Maybe we could go two to a canoe? At that point there's no _way_ any of them would sink."

"I don't know, whichever one has Tidus's skull in it seems a little endangered," Vanille says. Tidus looks horribly wounded.

"Come on, now," Rinoa says, "Everybody's skull is a good skull in its own way. He needs that thickness, for sports." Tidus throws a ball at her head and she ducks quickly out of the way.

Everybody splits up into groups of two, kinda loosely calculated for an even weight spread, and you all sit down in the canoes to see if you die. Nobody does! It's great! It's always fun to hang out with the older kids, too. They're all way too cool for you, except maybe Tidus, but even he's good at sports or something.

Eventually Rinoa's dog comes sprinting along the beach and hurls his soft body into the canoe Kairi's in so she can pet him and say dog things. Then Riku declares that specific canoe has now been _extra-_stress tested, and makes everyone trade Angelo around until _all_ the canoes can definitely handle two people and one dog.

Even then, no one dies.

* * *

_Two months ago_

Until recently the three of you were constantly on the lookout for busted canoes to buy. The first two canoes, you got mostly through Riku carefully leveraging various connections that wouldn't involve people telling your parents about what you were doing with canoes. The last one, though... the last one was hard.

But eventually, you stumbled on a newspaper ad for a canoe with a hole in the bottom. The only problem was that it was _two thousand munny,_ and needless to say, none of you had two thousand munny. All of you put together did not have two thousand munny. All of you put together had _sixty_ munny, because you had gone to the movies the day before and _spent_ sixty munny.

Now, that would've been a problem in the best of circumstances, but this wasn't that. Not only was it two thousand munny, the guy selling it needed it to be picked up the same day, or else he was gonna chop it up and use it for firewood, like someone who didn't value canoes _at all._

It took all three of you brainstorming for at least forty minutes to even start coming up with ideas, and you're proud to say that the first hint of your solution came from _your_ incredible brain.

"Guys, I've got it," you said suddenly as Kairi picked at one of her peeling nails and Riku stared at the ceiling. _"Pirate Encounter."_

You had to explain that, of course, because those words put together really didn't mean anything useful to anybody but you. See, it was a really busy day for families in the village square, which just happens to be near Kairi's house, and people busk over there all the time.

Your brilliant idea, befitting a pirate, maybe even one who could be encountered, was that you could come up with some stupid thing that people might pay you munny to let their kids do. People love taking their kids to squares, and if there's anything kids love, they love_ pirates,_ and together, those kids and parents would probably even have munny.

It was also great because you could probably make pirate costumes out of stuff you already had, because come on, pirate costumes aren't exactly the hardest thing to make, especially if you only have to convince children.

"That's brilliant," Riku said, banging his fist on the floorboards and startling Kairi. "We could swordfight each other, and then for just 25 munny, _your very own child_ can fight their choice of me or you. We'll give them a good show of it but let them win, strike a victory pose, and then _Kairi_ snaps a _picture_ with that fancy camera she has, and the parents can _choose_ to pay an extra 25 munny to keep it."

That seems a little bit dubious, but it also seems like something that'll work.

"I still have my face painting kit from that time we had to raise money for Riku's healing bill," Kairi said. "Maybe I could do, um... pirate... face painting? Like a cool skull, or maybe something else that children want pirates to like?"

"Yeah, that's great," you said, extremely proud of your very smart friends. "Ooh, and we could sell _pirate snacks."_

"What are pirate snacks going to be?" Kairi asked, a little bit confused, and you realized you didn't actually know, but luckily...

"They're whatever snacks we already have in our houses, except we take them out of the package, give them pirate names, and mark them up."

Kairi didn't seem super excited about the marking up part, or the complicated legality of it all, but she at least agreed that it might make children smile, and you guess that was enough.

"Hmm... but what if people ask questions? Or if they're just, you know, mean?" You don't like to think that people would be choose to be mean, but it happens.

"We'll tell them the truth," Kairi said. "We're saving up for a boat. As long as we don't explain that it's _this_ boat, we'll sound very responsible."

"Parents _love_ responsibility," you said. "It's foolproof."

And it was.

"We'll put out a hat too," Riku said. "In case anybody just likes sword fighting and wants to contribute. It's not likely, but it can't hurt. Maybe somebody gullible like Kairi's grandma will come by."

"My grandma's not gullible," Kairi mumbled, but she didn't seem very sure about that.

Anyway, Pirate Encounter went pretty well. You all did your things! There was a cool sword fight, Kairi was a pretty good manager and of course she painted a mean animal face and/or cool skull, it was a nice day out, and people _totally_ gave you munny.

Vanille even came by once and thought you were all very cute and gave you like 200 munny just to be nice, which Riku seemed sort of resentful of, but was not willing to turn down, but most of your money came from real actual customers. You all felt Cool, and Mildly Successful.

There was a little bit of an upset at one point when a little girl came by wanting to fight a girl pirate, and you had to signal Kairi through a sword fight with a little girl by pantomiming stuff at her. It was difficult and she looked like she was gonna pass out from stress, but your friendship was strong enough and you made it work.

You were so proud of Kairi, and proud of your awesome friendship. There was hugging and everything. It was a great day.

Then, just when things were winding down, some jerk stole your hat, which is where the tips were _and_ where you were keeping all the _other_ munny! You and Riku had to chase the guy down halfway across town, jumping over fences and running through an old abandoned building Riku was inexplicably familiar with. But that was actually kinda cool, too.

And you did it! You caught the guy, and you fought him a little and won even though he was older and scrappy and punched Riku in the ear so hard some sparks of light shot out.

You stood there, holding your hard-earned hard-returned munny hat, sweaty and out of breath and triumphant, and you were so pumped that you hugged Riku out of nowhere, and Riku was so pumped he didn't even make it weird.

By then the crowds were winding down, but you still squeezed in a little bit more Pirate Encounter, and that was good too.

Then you all realized as the sun began to set that it was time to either go get the canoe or give up and let it be "put down", as Riku chose to put it for some reason, but you didn't actually have all the munny. In fact, you didn't even quite have _half_ the munny.

You all went there anyway, hoping if you gave it to the guy he'd compromise and let you pay the other half tomorrow or next week or something, so you could get some more Pirate Encounter done, but when you got there you discovered a man who had never even heard of sympathy.

Except Riku did some quick thinking and Kairi did some quick not-getting-in-his-way, and they managed to convince him to sell you the canoe for 953 munny and some wood to be brought over later with a wild story about how Kairi was totally Riku's depressed adopted cousin who just came from another world and you desperately needed to show her the islands were good, actually, and a place where refugees could still be happy.

You were _so_ proud of your cool friends and their problem-solving skills, who even had a cool friendship with each other, and the two of them even awkwardly hugged afterward, Kairi looking really nervous and Riku looking like somebody was making him touch a weird bug.

(So, you guess _they're_ never getting married after all, which is kind of a relief if you're being honest.)

You and Riku had to chop a bunch of wood the next day, but it was worth it. You had your last canoe.

The three of you had to get it to the island yourself, so you tied it up between your boat and Riku's boat while Kairi sat in it and told you where to go. It was really dumb and you can't believe nobody drowned, but it worked.

You paddled those canoes out to the island, and you thought about how happy you were to be accomplishing this cool stuff with your cool friends who were awesome and who loved you and each other, and the sea smelled like adventure, and you knew that together you could take on the world.

* * *

_Today, again_

All the canoes float through the stress testing just fine, so you drag them up onto the beach and get started assembling the rig. Riku knows the most about this stuff so he takes the lead; you help and do whatever boat repair stuff he tells you to do while Kairi finishes painting the sail.

(You think she feels a little bad about not knowing how to do any of the rest of it, but come on, you can't have a cool raft without a cool sail! That's just obvious.)

And then, somehow, against all odds... it's over. After all this time, all this hard work, the raft is finally finished. The three of you tie it up at the docks, and you lag behind in the scary cave a little because somebody has to go get the water for today's test run.

As you're rooting through your supplies, you hear a weird noise behind you, and the hairs on your neck stand up.

"Who's there?" It must just be Riku or Kairi, but why wouldn't they say something?

"I've come to see the door," says a voice you've never heard before. You finally turn around. There's a guy there - at least, it sounds like a guy - standing half-silhouetted in the mouth of the cave. He's wearing a weird brown robe and you can't see his face.

"...Huh?" Why does he care about the door in the scary cave? It never opens. You kinda think it might not even be a real door.

"This world has been connected," he says.

"Uh, what are you talking about?" You wish you could see his face. It's making you feel really weird to not be able to see it.

Also, it's weird for a grown-up to be out here. This island pretty much belongs to the kids, usually.

"Tied to the darkness... soon to be completely eclipsed."

"Okay, well, could you maybe stop freaking me out like this?" And maybe he could actually say something _to_ you. You really don't like people who just talk _at_ you. It makes you feel weirdly helpless, like nothing you do actually matters.

"You do not yet know what lies beyond the door, do you, child?"

Well, that's better, except that it's really creepy and doesn't make any sense. Unless...

...No way. Could it be?

"...Are you... from another world?"

"There is so very much to learn. You understand so little, marooned on this tiny speck of light."

"O... oh yeah?" You try your best to sound confident and defiant, like Riku would. "Well, you'll see. I'm gonna get out and learn what's out there!"

"A meaningless effort," he says. "One who knows nothing can understand nothing. Nor can he even find a chance to try. Such is the way of things."

"Listen, I'm getting real tired of this, okay? Why don't you go be rude to somebody else? I'm a little busy here, if you haven't noticed!"

You're done wasting time talking to this weirdo jerk, so you turn your back on him and finish loading your satchel full of water bottles.

When you turn back around, he's gone. _That's_ not weird at all.

...Oh well. At least you don't have to listen to his dumb voice anymore.

* * *

"Sora, we need a name for the boat," Riku says as soon as he sees you again. You're honestly a little relieved to have a distraction.

"You're right, we _do_ need to name the raft," you say. Riku sighs theatrically.

"I've been thinking about it, and the _boat_ needs a dignified name. Something like... _The Highwind."_

"That sounds like one of those party boats rich people have in movies," you say, glancing to Kairi to see if she agrees. She doesn't say anything, but you can tell by the look on her face that she totally gets it. "I say we call the raft _Excalibur."_

"Where did you even come up with a name like that?"

"It's a cool sword from some book I read once. That's a _way_ better thing to name a raft after than... whatever dumb thing gave you _your_ idea."

"Fine, then. There's only one way to settle this," Riku says, smirking.

"You're right. We settle this... like _pirates."_

The two of you go to get the wooden swords you always play with. Riku's kinda better than you, unfortunately, but this is important. You _know_ you can pull through when it really counts.

You raise your sword, totally prepared to win glory and name your raft.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Kairi is painting Riku's name for the boat on one of the canoes, and your name for the raft on one of the others, even though Riku won. You all work together to load up the boat while the paint starts to dry, and once it seems like it's not gonna run too much, you hop on board your respective canoe-segments and go.

This is it, you realize, looking out at the afternoon sun shining across the waves, smelling the salt in the air, watching your best friends in the world paddle along with you as you drift off toward the horizon. This is the start of the adventure you've been waiting your whole lives for.

You can't _wait_ to get started.

* * *

**(riku)**

You set out for the island shaped like a butt, with the wind at your back and the world slowly opening up before you.

Sailing's easy - well, it's easy for you, because you do it more than anybody else around here. Your Mom is drunk so much of the time that you end up getting most of the groceries, and sometimes that means taking out one of the bigger boats and heading around the islands.

Sora... can definitely make it a short distance without turning the whole thing over and drowning like an idiot. Kairi can't, but of course there aren't many things Kairi can do in the first place, so it's not like you've ever expected her to navigate anything without instructions.

"Hey, Riku. Do you think there's gonna be another world right there? On the island that's shaped like a butt?" Sora sounds like he actually thinks there's a chance. Maybe that's encouraging, in a way.

"No. If there was, somebody else would've found it by now. But it's worth looking anyway, just to mark it off the list once and for all. Then we can start going farther out." The truth is a little more complicated, actually, because you have something that none of the other kids did. For all you know, this might be the day.

It won't be, of course. But it would be stupid not to check.

"What will we do if we don't find anything?" Kairi, staring out at the water, her eyes weirdly glossy and empty, even by Kairi standards. You feel a little prickle of irritation for some reason, even though she's asking the same questions you ask yourself every five minutes.

"Kairi, pull the rope on your left." She blinks, shakes her head a little.

"Which... rope is that?"

"The one on the _left,_" you say, with a level of patience you really aren't feeling.

"Oh," she says. "Right." And she starts pulling.

"If we don't find anything, we'll keep looking," you finally answer. "And if we don't find anything then, we'll know there's nothing to find."

But there _will_ be something to find. Some people are still doubtful about other worlds, somehow, because some people are stupid, and would probably drown if they accidentally looked up during a rainstorm one day. Not you, though.

If there are no other worlds, then where did Tidus and Rinoa and Vanille come from? Where did Kairi come from?

Where did _you_ come from?

Your earliest memory is still lodged like a thorn somewhere deep under your skin, sharp and clear. Being small and terrified and wrapped up in your Mom's arms, choking on _something_ out there in the dark, a field of cold stars leering at you like eyes in the night. The horrible, piercing cold. Whispers, from every direction at once, like the sound of fingers trailing across your skin.

And crashing, finally, into a cold and storm-tossed ocean, and waking up again confused in a place you didn't recognize. The weeks it took Mom to recover enough to walk around, or feed you, or really even to talk to you.

The time she took you in a boat to find a way back home, and drifting back to this place half-dead from dehydration, because packing extra beer was clearly more important than packing drinking water.

...Obviously, you won't be making the same mistakes.

"I... um... uh..." Kairi is fidgeting anxiously over in her boat, for some reason. She's still staring out at the water, except this time she's looking back at the island you just left. Her eyes are kind of wild and twitchy, and it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, because you genuinely can't remember ever seeing a look like that on her face before.

She looks like she wants to leap out of the boat and just... swim home.

You could ask her what's wrong. Probably you _should_ ask her. But then she might answer, and then you might have to do something different. So you don't ask. Eventually, she settles down. Kind of.

That's good enough for you.

* * *

It only takes an hour and a half or so to get to the island that's shaped like a butt. The three of you flop out onto the shore and get to exploring.

It's not exactly the most interesting place you've ever been. Tropical woods, mostly, and some weird huge crabs that you don't really see on the main islands. You keep your distance from those, even though Sora wants to catch one and keep it as a pet, because it's never even _occurred_ to Sora to think about self-preservation.

Now, you're not saying there's _nothing_ interesting about this. It's a little interesting, of course, because you're not supposed to be here, and it's just far enough that it wasn't worth the effort. You've been here once before, alone, but it was tough enough without a sail that you never tried again.

If your hunch is right, you wouldn't have found anything on your own anyway. But today, things are different.

"Riku, wait, what are we supposed to be doing again if we stay out here overnight?"

You sigh. You're not sure why you expected Sora to remember a thing for more than half a day.

"I'm... supposed to be at Sora's house, I think?" At least Kairi's honest enough to sound unsure as she totally butchers your plans. Sora's house. Sure. Doesn't she just wish.

"No, you're supposed to be at _my_ house," you say, before any of this can get out of hand like it usually does. "Your grandma won't talk to my Mom about it, at least not right away, not after all that drama with the cliff and the fence and the rotten coconuts."

"Oh yeah," Sora says, and for a second you think he might have actually dredged something useful up out of his short term memory, or maybe it's more like medium-term. "We're both supposed to be at Riku's house, right."

"What? No. You're supposed to be at _Kairi's_ house, obviously, because then your aunt's not going to worry about anything." As long as there's no specific reason to be anxious about Sora, his aunt will definitely stay exactly as hands-off as she always does, which is hands-off enough that none of you have any concerns about it.

"Ohhhh. Wait, then where are-"

"I'll be telling _my_ Mom that everybody's staying at your house, Sora." And she'll be drunk about it, and rude about it, but she won't care enough to be a problem. She might not like Sora, but she just doesn't have the same venomous edge about him that she does about Kairi.

"Yeah, okay. I guess that makes sense." He definitely only halfway understands your reasoning, but it's fine. Half is enough, as long as he doesn't get in the way of you calling the shots.

"If we end up staying out more than a day," you continue, "we might have to bribe one of the others to pass on a fake message from Kairi and tell everybody our various fake sleepovers are running late."

"Who should we ask?" Kairi sounds like she doesn't like the idea of asking anyone to say anything fake about anything. She's always determined to be everybody's moral compass. You'll just have to be twice as realistic to compensate, as usual.

"Good question. The real concern is who we can trust not to screw it up, which... maybe rules Tidus out. I don't think acting is exactly his strong suit." You don't really think anything is Tidus's strong suit, other than maybe hitting things. A branch snaps behind you somewhere, and Kairi squeaks.

"Doesn't Rinoa kinda hate parents or something?" You're a little surprised Sora even remembers that.

"She doesn't hate parents," Kairi mumbles. "She just doesn't like _bad_ parents." You try not to scoff at that. She's right, of course, but since when is there such a thing as a good parent?

"Maybe Vanille," Sora says. "I don't think she really cares about, like... anything."

You nod, pushing aside a big leafy plant, and turn to make sure you don't accidentally let it go and smack Sora in the face. Then you stop dead.

"Kairi, what happened?" You'd be annoyed at her delaying you, but you're too busy being disturbed.

"N... nothing?" It's obviously not nothing, you have _eyes_. She's kind of half-crouched down in the brush, sniffling and trying not to cry, and... oh crap, there's blood all over the leaves and vines, somehow.

"Whoa, Kairi, are you okay? Is that _your_ red stuff?"

Someday, Sora will definitely remember what body parts are called even when he doesn't have them. You choose to believe that.

"I'm o-okay, really! I can keep going!"

You're not sure how much blood is too much blood. Honestly, most of the islanders don't have it, so all you really know is stuff you learned in school, and usually it's not relevant to you at all. But you also know that even if it _was_ too much blood, Kairi would say she was fine, so you let the plant flop back into place and go check on her.

"What _is_ that? Is that... oh, that's a trap, isn't it?" You guess now you know why the kids aren't allowed to come out to this island. It's got all these little metal teeth that are digging into the meat of her leg. You try not to stare in fascination at the blood welling up from around the teeth, or to think too hard about what it feels like to get injured and have stuff inside you _not stop coming out_ after the initial flash of light.

"Kairi, I think we should go get you healed," Sora says.

"Sora's right," you say, because he is, not because you like it.

"Are you... sure? I could... probably, um..." Kairi trails off and winces. You guess it must hurt pretty bad.

"Riku, should we try to take the thing off her?" Sora looks like he really doesn't want to touch it, or get anywhere near the blood.

"...No, I think that just lets more blood out, doesn't it?" Kairi nods slowly. That must be _really_ inconvenient. "C'mon, Kairi. I'll carry you back."

You dislodge the trap from the ground while she tries not to whimper in pain, and kind of hoist her up onto your back, heading for the boat. She's heavy, and warm, and you can feel her breathing. It's weird, and you'd really like to get it over with as fast as possible.

As you load her back into the boat, you do your best to stay positive about this trip. Sure, it was kind of a failure, but also it really wasn't. You made it here just fine.

You were right. You can do this.

* * *

_A lot of years ago_

Ever since that bright Winter day all those years ago, it's been the three of you. Ever since you and Sora made that promise in the dirty, melting Christmas snow, hands clasped tight, the sunlight glaring off whitened rooftops, like a spotlight shined on how terrible you were, after the awful thing you did to Kairi.

It was the year after you stopped believing in Santa. You'd talked Sora into not believing in Santa either, because you make bad decisions every single day, so Sora only got practical stuff from his aunt, and you only got yelled at, and meanwhile the other kids were still coming in with their big hauls of a million great presents.

It just wasn't fair that whether or not Christmas sucks depends on whether you're lucky enough to have a family that doesn't suck, and it wasn't fair that the lucky ones don't even have to _know_ they're lucky because they all bought into the Big Lie of Santa Claus.

So, you decided to fix the problem. You and Sora would just... find an emotionally sensitive classmate who still got Santa, and you'd get pity-invited to sleep over at their house for Christmas. It would be easy, because Sora is an orphan and everybody knows you Come From A Bad Home.

Then you'd just sneak out by the tree and wait for "Santa" to come and see if he was real or not. Sora was - and let's be real, probably still is - _Santa-agnostic,_ and he wouldn't let go of the hope that there might really be a Santa there that the two of you could apologize to. You obviously figured it was just everybody's parents, but that was just as good, because once you caught them you could demand that they get you presents too or you'd tell their kid that Santa wasn't real.

Maybe it wasn't the nicest, most morally upright Christmas scheme, and you probably wouldn't have done it if it was just your problem, but you couldn't stand seeing Sora all glum on the holidays. Sadness just hangs wrong on his face. One look at that, and you're willing to do anything and everything to make it go away.

Anyway. Kairi was the obvious target. Everyone knew you could get Kairi to agree to pretty much whatever you wanted, and _you_ didn't know her that well, but Sora had played with her a few times and claimed the assessment was pretty accurate.

(Neither of you had the slightest idea just _how_ accurate it was, though. Probably most of the people talking about her didn't, either.)

Everything worked out smoothly. You both got invited to Kairi's house. Then you got there. You got there, and it was _weird._ She had a nice house, which you guess should've been obvious for the mayor's adopted granddaughter, and she was a girl, and the whole thing was just really intimidating. You kept waiting for the moment you'd look over at Sora and realize you could see _on his face_ that now he liked her better than you.

Sora had a pretty good time, because he was Sora. Kairi liked drawing and animals and fairy tales and being nice to people, and Sora was _perfectly_ happy to be taught how to draw a five-point star and help Kairi put out boxes and towels in the field out back so all the assorted beasts of the island would have somewhere to take shelter from the year's one night of magical Christmas snow and pretend to be a scary dragon.

Every once in a while Kairi's grandma would come out with snacks and be weirdly nice to you and talk about how glad she was that Kairi had friends over for Christmas, which obviously meant how glad she was that Kairi had _friends._ It was confusing and frustrating and put you on edge, like there was no way to predict the next time you might have to duck.

Sora was acting weird because you never did all this crap by yourselves, but also, if you're being honest, it was kind of satisfying to be better than Sora at things for an audience. Figuring out how to draw different kinds of stars with even more points, or make a better shelter, or be a stronger make-believe knight.

It was just nice, somehow, when she smiled at you. There was something uncomplicated about it, like maybe this was what it would've been like to have a little sister. Something familiar, even, although to this day you can't figure out why.

...Then again, if you had a sister, maybe Sora would've just been friends with her and not you. So no. Things were fine how they were.

The night got more and more calm and subdued as the babies all wore themselves out, until finally everyone was putting up stockings - her grandma gave everyone _stockings,_ like some kind of _bribe_ \- and Kairi brought out milk and homemade cookies for Santa, like baiting a bear trap in her living room.

And then, the inevitable happened: it became time to talk about What You All Wanted From Santa. Sora wanted a real sword, because that made sense and would definitely happen, and you wanted "a thousand munny," because you couldn't think of anything better and _that_ would definitely happen.

But Kairi... like always, Kairi was herself. Kairi had made some weird little charm out of popsicle sticks, and tried to "work some magic" on it even though you're pretty sure she didn't know any magic and neither did anybody your age, and what did she want? What did she want for _Christmas?_

She wanted Santa Claus to deliver a present _from her,_ to _someone else._

"I just hope Santa will help me give this to the girl who gave me my necklace, and... maybe tell me if she's still okay," Kairi said, like someone whose only goal in life was to be respected by a church.

So everyone sat around reassuring Kairi that Santa Claus, a real person, would _definitely_ help deliver her altruism, and you tried really really hard not to make any jokes about how her gay lover was absolutely dead, and you _almost_ succeeded.

And then everyone went to bed, and by "everyone went to bed," you mean that Kairi went to bed in her very pink room, and you and Sora pretended to go to bed in the guest room and then made dark plans to lurk behind her living room couch and lie in wait for your festive prey.

Except on the way there you made too much noise and "woke up" Kairi, who you suspect was exactly as not-asleep as any kid is on Christmas Eve, gay or not. And that's how the three of you hid behind Kairi's couch all night long.

It took almost all the way until dawn before Kairi suddenly realized Santa Claus probably wouldn't show up if someone was watching, or maybe she'd thought that the whole time and it took her six and a half hours to work up the courage to go against the flow.

She got really distressed about it, is the thing. You had to talk her out of crying, and then you felt really weird about yourself when it worked. And then five minutes later it stopped working, because she realized that once the sun rose Santa wouldn't come, and then Santa wouldn't deliver her stupid charm-thing, and she tried to to go tell her grandma that you and Sora were trying to ruin Christmas.

And, yeah, maybe you panicked a little bit, because that would mean everybody was going to get it, and then her grandma would call your Mom and you'd get it _again_ at home - this was before the thing with the fence - and you grabbed Kairi and pushed her up against the wall.

"Your girlfriend's _dead,_ Kairi, like everybody from your world, and half my family, and half of everybody's families! Are you going to be the one person on this whole island who can't suck it up and deal?"

And then Sora punched you for hitting girls, even though you didn't hit _anybody,_ and in fact nobody getting hit was the whole _point,_ and then everybody was yelling loud enough to wake up Kairi's grandma, who put her to bed and was Very Disappointed In Both Of You, and that's how you ruined Christmas when you were eight years old.

Kairi's grandma lectured you both for at least forty-five minutes, but for some reason nobody actually got hit. She said a lot of stuff that you didn't entirely take seriously - that you can't treat Kairi like that, because she's special and she doesn't know how to say no to people, and you felt kind of bad about all of it but you figured she was being a little bit ridiculous, too.

Her grandma went off to buy presents, which she was going to have to do now that you had driven Santa away into the cold morning, and all in all it was basically an okay Christmas by your standards... until later that day, when you saw Kairi again.

She wasn't angry, is the thing. She wasn't upset, or hurt, or depressed. She didn't mind that any of it had happened at all. It was clearly _not_ that she was colonizing the moral high ground, or that she thought it would be wrong to hold a grudge.

No, she just smiled and said it was okay, and she knew you didn't mean anything by it, and you finally started to understand what her grandma meant by 'special.'

Because Kairi _couldn't_ hold a grudge. She didn't really even understand what a grudge _was._

She couldn't even stay sad for a whole day.

"We gotta do better than this," Sora said as the Christmas magic wore off and the last of the snow melted around you, running down rain gutters and pooling at the sides of houses. "We have to protect Kairi."

"...Yeah," you said, looking down at your feet and feeling kind of like a gross slug in the shape of a person. "Nobody else is going to do it, right?"

Sora shook his head, and technically her grandma was probably trying, but what was a grown-up going to be able to do to protect a kid, especially from other kids?

You _had_ to protect Kairi, because now you understood what she was.

Sora seemed happy about it, because of course he was. Sora's Sora, and he was Sora back then, too. To Sora, there's no such thing as too many friends. You... well, you weren't unhappy, exactly. You were just a little more cautious is all, cautious about destabilizing things, cautious about saddling yourself with that kind of responsibility, but...

...Well, _you_ weren't about to be the jerk who was an enemy of friendship. You just wanted Sora to keep on looking at you the same way he always had.

All of that was only the beginning of understanding what was special about Kairi. You learned a lot more things, some of them from being her friend, and some of them in other ways. And you came to understand that special people like her needed protecting from a lot of things, for a lot of reasons.

In a way, it made _you_ special too, being the only person - the only _people_ who could protect the special person. What was anyone else going to do? Nobody else was strong enough, or smart enough, or cold enough. Nobody else was going to do what needed to be done.

As usual.

* * *

_Today, again_

Sora and you handle most of the boat stuff on the way back home, because neither of you is exactly sure what kind of things make somebody with blood lose it faster.

You need Kairi to be in good shape. That's not optional, because Kairi is probably the secret to traveling to other worlds. With her here, you'll _definitely_ find a way off these tiny islands, and then you'll finally leave this place forever, and everything will be great.

Your friends will have to be convinced, of course, but you know you can do that. You've got all the time in the world.

And they'll see, once you've escaped. Everything will be so much better. They'll understand.

Someday, they'll thank you for it.

* * *

**(kairi)**

Sora and Riku take you back to the island, all the way to the other kids' hideout, because Vanille is closer than a proper healer, and also you don't want to waste a proper healer's time. Riku leaves to find a place to hide the raft-boat, and Sora wanders around poking at some of their possessions.

"Y'know, you could have just gone to a real healer," Tidus says from the doorway. You shake your head and he shrugs.

"Hmm..." Vanille leads you over to a chair and gets your leg propped up on a rock that the other kids use as a table sometimes. "Yep, that's pretty bad! Hey guys, have you got anything I can make a tourniquet with?"

"I don't know what that means," Tidus says.

_(Something drawing tight in your mind as the raft-boat sloshed toward the island, like a rubber band about to snap.)_

"I've probably got something! Let me just look around," Rinoa says, vanishing into a different part of the cave.

"Can you heal it?" Sora says anxiously, hovering nearby. Vanille nods.

"It's harder to heal other people with blood, but I sure can!"

"Will this work?" Rinoa re-enters the room with an old scarf. Vanille takes it and ties it uncomfortably tight around your upper leg. You bite your lip and try not to make noise.

_(What did you do, and what did it cost?)_

"Sorry," Vanille says. "This is going to hurt a bit. What happened, anyway?" Your answer is delayed a bit by the skittering sound of paws on stone as Rinoa's dog Angelo sprints into the cave and skids to a stop next to you, licking your hand.

"We w-went to... the island that's shaped like a butt, to explore, and then..." You trail off, petting Angelo idly. He always seems excited to see you, for some reason.

"Ah, yeah. There's some old guy who keeps leaving traps all over there. That's why everybody tries to keep their kids away. What were you guys exploring for?"

"Well... Riku wanted to, and I didn't really know how to... I mean..." You're not sure how to phrase this, and you don't want to say anything that might sound mean by accident. "It was important, that's all. I - _aaaah!"_

While you're distracted, Vanille suddenly pops the trap loose from your leg. Blood immediately pours from a bunch of little holes in your calf, and you wonder how much worse it would be without the tourniquet. Vanille's hands hover in front of the wounds, glowing faintly, and you watch in fascination as the pulses of flowing blood slow and the pain gets duller and duller.

_(Like cold, sharp spider legs, prickling up and down your spine.)_

"Y'know, you could try standing up to that guy once in a while, Kairi," Tidus says while staring at your leg like it's an alien creature. "Or I could just punch him for you if you want."

"Huh? Why would anybody be punching Riku?" Sora stares at Tidus, apparently exactly as confused as you are, but the looks on everyone else's faces seem to be saying that they all think it's obvious.

"Riku didn't do anything wrong," you say, _(because you're the one who did something wrong)_ because he didn't. If anyone did something wrong, it was you _(for finally breaking the rules, so foolishly)_ for holding everyone up so much.

You feel a little dizzy and nervous. Maybe it's just the blood loss.

_(Maybe it's not.)_

"I think maybe he could stand to worry about whether other people actually want the same things he does, once in a while," Rinoa says. Tidus nods. They're wrong, of course, but... no, they're just wrong. Riku is good. Riku is your friend.

"Thank you for being concerned about me, but I'm okay," you say. "Really."

No one seems particularly convinced.

_(Not even you.)_

"Okay, I think I've done just about everything I can," Vanille says. The glow fades from her hands. She unties the scarf from your leg and leans back against the cave wall, a line of sweat running down her forehead. "Try to go a little easy on that leg for a day or two, just in case?"

"I'll try," you say, and you will, as long as that doesn't get in anyone's way. You reach down to pet Angelo again, but he suddenly jerks his head toward the cave entrance, ears pricked, and then he bolts off into the evening.

"Angelo, wait! Oh no, he must have smelled some kind of critter!" Rinoa rushes out after her dog, and a second later Tidus follows her.

"Be safe, okay?" Vanilla pats you on the head like you're a small child, then follows her friends, leaving you alone with Sora and a lot of slightly-dried blood in the older kids' cave.

Sora sits down on Vanille's rock next to you, scratching his head anxiously.

"Hey, Kairi... you do _want_ to go visit other worlds with us, right?"

You stare at Sora for a few long seconds. You definitely aren't going to cry.

"I wouldn't mind visiting other worlds," you say. Sora smiles a little, mollified.

It's true. You wouldn't mind visiting.

...But...

You're not sure if you _can_ visit. It's just... too far away.

It isn't that you're afraid of going far away, exactly. You just... can't. Ever since you arrived on Destiny Islands, you've felt... leashed, somehow. There's some part of your mind that's tied to this island, the one all the kids like to play on. Like Angelo when Rinoa ties him near a fence or something so he won't wander too far away.

The farther you go from the island, the weirder you feel. There are places on the mainland where you're stuck on one side of the street; there are exciting things on the other side that you'd love to see, but you just... can't.

You've never been able to explain why you can't just go to that really nice looking candy shop, that pet store, that park. You've tried to talk to your grandma about it, but even someone who's as good at magic as she is could never figure out what was happening. She's spent years on it, actually, looking for a cure, and hasn't made any progress.

That's okay, usually. You're very, very used to it. Except now the leash feels...

_(Wrong.)_

What is this weird, lingering dread at the edges of your mind? You're not used to fear at all. Hardly anything really scares you, and most of the time when other people are scared, you feel guilty about it but you just can't understand why. But this... this is just...

_(Terrifying.)_

You just... you didn't even want to do this. You don't hate Riku's ideas, really, but you don't understand them either. You know enough about boats to understand that this is probably not going to work out, even with all your effort to be well-supplied, and you don't know why he thinks he'll find the ways to other worlds in the water.

You suppose you don't know where they are, either, and it's stupid and unfair of you to doubt him, but... your instincts are telling you to look _higher._

What if all of you die at sea trying to find something that doesn't exist? You don't want Sora to die, or Riku, especially not for no reason. And... you know perfectly well that Riku doesn't actually want to come back, even if Sora can't seem to see that.

_(Too far. It's all too far, and too late.)_

Something deep in your heart feels strange, and wrong, and cold. Once, Riku made everyone watch a weird scary movie, and the only part that bothered you was when there was the ghost of a little girl, crying in a deep dark hole, because she was still scared of something, even after dying. That feeling, those scared hopeless tears, are exactly what you can feel crawling along the back of your neck.

None of you are even going to make it to sea, are you?

"Sora? If we get lost at sea, it's okay if you guys eat me. I'm the only one who would leave a body, so... I should probably die first."

"Wh... what? Kairi, where's that coming from?" Sora stares at you like you're speaking another language. "We're not gonna get lost, I promise. Everything's gonna be fine."

"..Okay. I'm sorry," you say. You guess it's okay that he doesn't really understand what you're trying to say. You're not sure if you understand what you're trying to say, either.

"How's your leg doing? You okay?" You almost flinch at the unexpected voice, turning your head to the cave entrance yet again to see Riku standing there, silhouetted against the evening.

"I'm fine," you say, and in the context he was asking about, that's mostly true.

"Good. Come on then, you guys. Let's go watch the sunset."

Sora helps you up, although you probably don't need it, and by the time you're out of the cave it barely hurts to walk anymore.

The three of you make your way over to the little island with the paopu tree, taking your usual spots and watching the sky burn and bruise over. You're struck by the sudden, irrational certainty that the sun is never going to rise on this world again. A few paopu fruits sway in the chill wind, ripe and vulnerable.

The thing is, you _know_ that most people don't think you can want anything, but...

* * *

_Last year_

After weeks of nervous anticipation, it was finally time for the school festival. That year, for whatever reason the three of you got assigned the most coveted position of all: doing the obligatory booth about My Island's Natural Beauty, which was coveted because it was very, very simple, and no one had to have any clever ideas.

(You had kind of wanted to do a cat cafe, but you had to admit the boys had a point that this would be a lot less complicated.)

Sora went to the beach to dig up some natural beach beauty. You ended up going to Riku's house, which genuinely seemed like an okay idea at the time. There were a lot of butterflies around Riku's house some seasons, and...

"I've gotta use Kairi," Riku had said solemnly. "Small stupid animals _love_ Kairi. She could stand there holding a jar and the little weirdos would just float right in."

You weren't quite sure what made butterflies weirdos, but he wasn't wrong, so you let Riku lead you off away from the rest of the buildings, out to the weird thinly-populated poor part of town right at the south edge of the leash, the part of the town where everything _should_ be the same, but somehow all the sights seem just a little hazy and out-of-focus.

Except once you got there, Riku revealed that he had planned all along to "humanely" kill the butterflies, because that way they'd be easier to display, and honestly, wasn't dying a lot better than being imprisoned anyway? Riku could live with being a murderer, but he couldn't live with being a jailer. He said it like it was the most natural, obvious thing in the world.

You didn't agree with one single word. Murder seemed like a bad thing, especially if they weren't even going to become food for other creatures. You told Riku that if they were alive then people could see them moving around and it would make a better exhibit, because that's the kind of logic that gets through to Riku, but really you just didn't want to hurt them.

The two of you got into as much of an argument about it as you were personally capable of, which to be honest wasn't very much, but it was enough to wake up Riku's mom at three in the afternoon. She came out into the garage, and...

"What are you damn kids doin' out here at this hour? Riku, you _know_ what kinda girl spends all her time hangin' around with boys. The kinda girl who's shootin' for child support!"

Riku started yelling back, and his mom knocked the display off the table and broke it on the floor and stormed back into the house. Riku followed in her, still yelling, and you stood there in the garage by all the broken glass listening to screaming voices and people crashing around.

Then Riku came back with a bag of frozen pineapple chunks pressed against the side of his face.

"Kairi," Riku said, putting his spare hand on your shoulder and squeezing a little too hard. "If Sora asks what happened, I just walked into a door, alright? I walked into a door because I'm an idiot."

"But... but didn't-"

"_I walked into a door, Kairi. This is important."_

The look on his face was as urgent as the time traveling hero of a movie you saw once when he went back into the past to warn his friends about the end of the world.

"Okay, Riku," you said, because it was the only thing you could say. "If Sora asks, I'll..."

"Good," Riku said, looking a little relieved. "Good. Okay, we can still salvage this. It's not too late. I'll go dig up some more plants. You go catch some more butterflies to replace the ones my Mom killed."

And he ran off before you could beg him to give you something less stressful to do. Not that you actually could have begged him, anyway.

But by the time you got back to the field where the butterflies were, it was getting a little dark and they had migrated over to the warmer side of the field where you couldn't reach. You sat there for hours trying to call them over, but they never came, and you thought about the encroaching night-time, and Riku's mom, and dead butterflies, and child support, and you started to feel the slow, awful creep of something dark and cold you weren't familiar with.

Then, finally, Sora arrived out of nowhere.

_"Riku walked into a door,"_ you all but shrieked.

"Yeah, that happens a lot," Sora said.

Riku never came back. Later, you found out that he'd just assumed you ditched him and went home. But Sora didn't assume anything. Sora didn't tell you to lie to anybody _or_ kill small animals. He was just nice to you while you panicked.

He came up with the idea of making paper butterflies - "Since you're such a good artist, Kairi!" - and he walked you back to your house where it was warm and there were art supplies and you didn't have to think about leashes, and he got some sticks out of the yard to glue the butterflies onto to make it look more nature-y.

Sora helped you cut out the paper and glue things together to work faster, and he always had something nice to say about whatever you were doing.

The booth came out okay. It wasn't really good or bad compared to the usual stuff at the festival. A lot of Sora's beach stuff went bad and you couldn't use it, and Riku didn't find as many cool island plants the second time around, but everybody liked your butterflies, and Sora put his arm around your shoulders and said you were the one who made them, and...

...And you didn't understand any of it at all, but you knew everybody was wrong about you, because you _did_ want something, even if you didn't know what it was.

* * *

_Today, again_

"Hey, Sora," Riku says, arms crossed behind his head, looking up at the sunset. "Have you ever shared a paopu fruit with anybody?"

You didn't think the sense of awful doom hanging over you could get any worse. You were wrong.

"Huh? N-no, of course not. Why, have you?"

He definitely hasn't.

But he could, couldn't he? If he wanted to.

_(Not that it matters now. Superstition can't fix what you've done.)_

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Whaaaat? C'mon, you gotta tell me if you did something like that!"

Why did you go with them to that stupid butt-shaped island? Why are you so stupid? Why can't you make one good decision in your whole life?

You didn't know the island would be too far. You've never tried to go too far in a boat before, where you couldn't turn around. And once you were out on the water, feeling the leash tighten around your throat, the mounting anxiety choke the words out of you, your friends and the current carried you forward, through the unpassable wall.

And now the leash is broken, and something very, _very_ bad is going to happen. You can feel it in your bones - deeper than your bones. In your heart. Maybe even deeper than that.

There's a long pause, and slowly you realize everyone is kind of just waiting for someone else to volunteer to eat a paopu fruit. You know why _you're_ not doing it; you don't want to be the person who wants to do it the most. Maybe they both feel the same way.

But you _could_ be that person, right? Does it actually matter if it's embarrassing? What if you could share the fruit with Sora, and _just_ Sora, and you could run away off the island together, far away from leashes and families and raft-boats and animal traps and Riku, and then maybe the bad thing won't happen, and it won't be anywhere near as too late as it obviously is.

...Wait, why are you thinking that? What would make you think something like that? This isn't like you at all.

You'll just... you'll just stop thinking about it, and when you get home you'll tell Grandma what you did and she'll help you, and maybe everything can still be okay.

* * *

No one volunteers to eat anything.

* * *

Eventually, it's almost totally dark out, and it's time to go home. The three of you make your way to the boats while you try not to cry or throw up _(might as well, while you still can)._ When you get there, Tidus seems to be waiting for you.

"Hey. You guys. You're... trying to go to another world, aren't you?"

It's clearly not really a question.

"...Maybe. What's it to you?" Riku looks like he half expects Tidus to run off and tell everyone's parents right away.

_(Suddenly, a sense of suffocation. Something pulling at you from behind.)_

"Listen. You know Rinoa was a sorceress back in her world, right? And everybody knows Vanille's great at magic. Well, neither of them could find us a way off these islands either. So if I'm gonna be honest with you guys... I don't think you're gonna find anything. But..." he trails off, kicking at the sand a little. "But if I'm wrong and you do it..."

_(Like vines, creeping across your skin, tangling between your fingers and around your wrists.)_

"...Yeah?" Sora says. Even he can tell this sounds like someone gearing up to ask for a favor.

_((((further renunciation denied / the ritual is to be maintained without cessation))))_

"If you really make it to another world... Rinoa's boyfriend's name is Squall. alright? Kind of a tall, dark, edgy kid, I heard. You know, like Riku, except dignified. Scar on his face. Vanille's girlfriend's name is Fang. She's always carrying a spear or something, that's all I've got. And my... my friend's name is Yuna. She's kind of a nice, soft person. A healer. Maybe she still likes wearing blue.

You're going to do your best to remember all of that, but you sort of wish he could have at least written all of this down.

_(The leash. The leash the leash the leash the leash)_

"So yeah," Tidus says awkwardly. "If you meet any of them... can you tell them we're okay? And... if you guys find a way out, and there's time to come back... take us with you."

_(It's shorter, now. Too short. You can't even take another step toward the boats.)_

Have to say something. Have to tell someone. Have to ask for help. Have to fight the _(fingers of cold light peeling open your bones)_ fear/sadness/terror/dread.

"Yeah, of course, Tidus! We'll keep an eye out, alright? And if there's time, we'll at least tell you where to go." Sora smiles at Tidus, who ruefully smiles back, and no one is looking at you. No one notices the leash. No one knows.

You open your mouth to speak, and close it again.

_(The leash is getting shorter. How much longer can you even stand here on the dock?)_

You don't want to be a problem. You've already been such a problem today.

...And maybe this is supposed to be happening, anyway. Maybe you deserve this _((((for an unforgivable dereliction of duty))))_.

"H... hey, guys?" Your voice sounds so small and faltering, even for you. "Could you leave me here for a while? You can, um... you can go back without me. I just want to..."

Riku gives you a long, appraising look. Is that a hint of guilt spreading across his face, or are you imagining things?

_((((the only guilt here is yours / the only sin))))_

"Sure," he says finally. "Take your time, alright? We can take my kayak back and leave Sora's for you. Right, Sora?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess that's okay," Sora says, obviously confused.

"Thank you," someone says with your mouth. It might even be you.

_(Tightening tightening tightening tightening go back go back go back go back)_

And just like that, Sora and Riku disappear into the night horizon, leaving you alone with Tidus.

A few seconds later _(or is it minutes?)_ Rinoa and Vanille show up, carrying all kinds of random stuff from their cave, and suddenly they're all piling into their own boats to go home, and everyone's saying goodbye to you, and you're saying goodbye to them, and you should ask them to wait, you could ask them to wait, except you can't, and you don't.

And then you're alone, and every last chance for help has disappeared before you could really even try to reach for it.

You take a step back toward the beach, and then another. The leash is pulling on your neck and your wrists and your ankles and your heart. And you walk, against your own will, back into the shadows of the island, toward the scary cave.

And you're remembering something, suddenly, from a very very long time ago. A memory of a dream, the first dream you can remember having, all the way back in the world you used to call home.

You were three years old, maybe, in real life and in the dream, and in the dream you were on a beach of bright white sand that faded into a vast ocean of blinding light, silver-white-gold, under a field of clouds that burned white and cold.

You walked out into the tide, and the water was hot enough to hurt just a little bit. Scouring like a bath. And you kept walking, and walking, until your head was under the surface, and all around you was the blistering bright white water, luminous like a thousand liquid suns, and the water crept into your nose and down your throat.

The light poured inside of you, and it filled you up like drowning, and you floated far, far beneath the waves, coughing up mouthfuls of colored ink, until there was nothing inside you but the light of an empty sky. The water burned it all away, hollowed you out like a clear glass bottle.

And when you woke up in the morning, you were different, and so was the world, and you were never really sad again in your life.

Why are you remembering this now, while the leash is pulling you away from the light, away from hope, away from everything, into the dark? Why does all of this feel so familiar, so obvious?

_((((there are always more eyes to open, child))))_

And finally you're all the way in the cave, pressing your hands up against the scary door, and the door is cold, cold like ice, and everything is so dark, and you're so alone, and you can't even sit down, just press yourself against the door, sobbing and sobbing in a way you never have before.

...It's okay, if this is what you have to pay to save everyone from the thing you did, but... you didn't even know you were doing something wrong. Can't you have another chance? One more chance, please?

_(But the burning inside just doesn't stop.)_

"P... please... just give me…"

"How _does_ failure taste, Princess?"

Your whole body goes stiff at the low, cold voice from behind you. You've never heard this voice before in your life. It's a man, an older man, at least as old as somebody's parents, and he sounds... so, so pleased with himself.

"As always, you've been outplayed. It's so easy, Princess, to turn your vessels against you. There's no keeping this door closed anymore. The day is ending, and it is finally time for _night."_

You can hear him shuffling around behind you, getting closer. His voice is so close that you can almost feel his breath on the back of your neck, and you don't want to turn around, but part of you wishes you _could_ turn around, just so you could look at him and see a person, a human being, and not a terrifying monster.

"There's no undoing this. You'll stand here, holding fast to your precious rituals, and I will watch as the darkness finally comes to greet this pitiful little prison you call a world."

He stays with you for a long time, hovering above and behind just like that, murmuring into your ear while you sob.

It's only when the last light finally fades from the entrance of the cave and everything is plunged into blackness that he laughs.

He laughs, and he leaves you alone in the dark.

Alone with the leash, and alone with the door.

Alone with yourself.


	2. Goodbye to a World

**(riku)**

* * *

You drop Sora off at his house and then go home, even if home's the last place you want to be, unlocking the door as quietly as you can and sneaking into your room. Mom doesn't even wake up, so she must've been hitting it extra hard extra early today. Lucky you.

Once you've made your way over to your bed and plopped down on it, you open up the little bag of supplies you've been carrying around and remove the thing you stole from the island, holding it up over your head where the moonlight can reflect off its porous surfaces.

Paopu really are weird-looking fruits. It's like a starfish that grew on a tree, except a lot more magical, maybe.

...You have no idea what you're going to do with this thing, but you know you want to do _something_ with it.

It's not that you don't like Kairi, alright? She's... a genuinely nice person, who's always going out of the way for her friends. You feel good whenever you can impress her. She's kind, generous, and if you're going to be honest about it, pretty. And it's not that Kairi doesn't like _you..._

...But you know perfectly well that if somebody gave her the choice and it was all the same to you, she'd rather it was just her and Sora hanging out, doing Kairi Stuff all on their own. Tea parties. Painting their nails. Giving to charity, or whatever.

You also know that _Kairi_ knows that if someone gave _you_ the choice, you'd rather it was just you and Sora, running along the beach and exploring new places and hitting each other with swords and actually doing things that are fun and matter.

So it's not that you've got anything against Kairi. It's just that the two of you are exactly the goddamn same. You don't want to share a magic fruit with Kairi, and she definitely doesn't want to share it with you.

The thing is, ever since you became a trio instead of a duo, it's felt inevitable that one of these days, you're going to piss Sora off enough that he won't be your friend anymore, because you're Too Much and there's really no changing that, and then Sora's going to stop being the guy who's got one really crappy best friend and start being the guy who has a hundred good friends and some extremely jealousy-inducing girlfriend while nobody gives a damn about that dramatic jerk Riku anymore.

Or maybe you'll be fine with it too, by the time it happens. You'll date a girl with a bunch of tattoos, and then one day you'll knock her up exactly like Mom is always warning you not to, and you'll suddenly decide families are good, actually, and you'll grow boring together.

You'll run into Sora at the market with your kids, and he'll say hi, and you'll say hi, and you'll both feel nostalgic about the good old days, and neither of you will really even remember how much it hurt. Maybe that'll happen here on Destiny Islands. Maybe it'll be in another world. Doesn't really matter. Either way, you can't escape the inevitable.

...But what if you could?

Your Mom's got a hundred different ways of calling Sora a fruit and implying you only go to his house so you can do gay things, and you've wondered a couple of times, honestly, but you're pretty sure it's not like that. You don't want to grab your best friend's ass. He'd punch you, and then you'd have to punch him, and everything would be ruined forever. Why does anybody want to grab anybody's ass? What's the point?

You just don't want to grow up.

You don't want to become someone who thinks putting babies in somebody is a great idea. You don't want to become someone who has a normal job. You don't want to become someone who realizes that actually your Mom was really trying her best, and you were the problem all along. You don't want to become someone who has a fresh twelve-pack of cheap beer in the fridge every morning.

So how exactly _are_ you going to trick Sora into eating this fruit?

Does it count if you make it into a smoothie and then lie about what kind of smoothie it is, or are drinking and eating too different for the magic to work? Should you try to win a bet and tell him you're making him do something embarrassing, say "Eat this fruit, you fruit" and punch him in the arm so it doesn't come off weird?

It's not like you can just ask him to do it. You're _not_ gonna be that guy.

Well, maybe you could try...

...Wait, what's that noise? Is there a storm outside or something? There's no window in your room, so you'll have to go look through the kitchen window or something. You haul yourself up and head out the door.

That doesn't _sound_ like a storm. There's a lot of wind, and the house might be rattling, very very slightly, but you can't place most of these noises, and you haven't heard any thunder.

Finally, you get the blinds open in the kitchen, and look out.

...Why is it so _dark?_ Did the power go out? No, of course it didn't, the lights are still on in here.

In the distance, something flashes bright, like lightning... except it's the wrong color. You've never in your life seen purple lightning before. And way out there in the dark, in the distance -

The hair's standing up on your arms and neck and basically everywhere as you try to convince yourself that you imagined all of those dark, strange shapes, writhing along the horizon... and then you finally identify some of those sounds.

Those are screams. A lot of screams, from a long distance away.

Far off near the beach, something explodes into a brief plume of orange flame, and for just a second you can see what look almost like the silhouettes of people out there, except that they're way, _way_ too tall to be people.

You're shivering. Are you... scared? No, that's not it. You _are_ scared, in a numb shocked way, but more than that you're _cold._ You can't think of any day in the year that's this cold except for Christmas, and that's only because Christmas magic makes it snow even in warm places. And it's not Christmas, and there's no snow.

There's _something_ falling from the sky, but it's not snow. It isn't rain, either.

Wait a minute. Where's Sora? Is Sora alright? Sora can't just be _at home_ when something insane is happening, he's a _moron,_ he'll see somebody's puppy crying outside and run out to help where all those _things_ are and...

...You have to go. You have to find him.

"Oh my God," Mom says from over your shoulder. You flinch and turn to look at her. "Oh my dear God."

"Mom, what's..." But you trail off when you see the way she's looking at you. Anger and fear and... disgust?

"Riku, _what did you do?"_

You don't even know how to process that question, let alone how to respond to it.

"What the _hell _did you do?!"

"Nothing! What are you talking about?"

She takes a step back. Looks to the window, then back to you.

"Not again," she says, and you don't think you've ever heard her sound so cold before. "I'm not letting you take everything away from me _again."_

And she raises her hand, fingers balling into a fist.

* * *

**(sora)**

You should probably be asleep by now, but instead you're laying around trying to remember that stupid dream you had earlier today. Sure, you know that's a little dumb, but it's really bothering you! It still just feels... _important,_ somehow.

Frustrated, you roll over onto your side to stare out the window, and whoa, hey! Is it storming all of a sudden? When did that happen? The tree outside your house is thwapping its branches all over the place.

Wow, it's actually _really_ windy, and you think you can see some flashes of thunder way off in the distance, although it hasn't started raining yet. The raft is probably okay, right? You kept most of it back in the cave, so it _should_ be fine, but... what about...

...You've got a real bad feeling, so you sit up straight and get a better view out your window towards the water, and sure enough, Kairi never brought your boat back. Is she still out there on the island? In this weather? Crap, you've gotta go find her!

Except she's still got your boat, doesn't she? You'll have to go borrow somebody else's.

You toss your shoes back on and run out of the house. As you exit into your yard, you have the weirdest, nervous-est feeling, looking up at the pitch-black sky and hearing the howling wind.

It's a little silly, but you go and get your wooden sword, just to make yourself feel better.

You're not sure who's going to be awake at this hour other than Riku, so you're just gonna have to go bother him. He probably won't mind helping out, anyway, and you'll feel more confident if he's with you.

The wind screeches around you, pulling at your clothes. It's freezing cold, so cold you can actually see your breath, and the dark clouds are so thick you can't see a single star. You're not even sure you can see the _moon,_ and you're pretty sure there should be a moon out tonight.

It's gonna be fine, though. You'll get to Riku's house, go grab Kairi, and everyone's going to be fine, no matter how much the waving branches of trees in the distance look like grasping arms.

* * *

You knock on Riku's door, cringing a little at a particularly bright burst of lightning out in the distance somewhere, hoping Riku will hear before you wake his Mom up... but nobody comes, so you huddle closer to the door and knock louder. Still nothing.

You really don't have time for this, so you're just going to open the door and find him yourself. If his mom is mad, well, whatever, right? This is too important to worry about mad moms.

Crap, the door's locked. You forgot how paranoid Riku's mom is - wait, is somebody yelling in there? There are loud voices, and... _whoa,_ somebody just screamed! Okay, now there's _really_ no time to mess around.

You slam against the cheap wood with your shoulder, wincing when you hear something splinter a little, and then the door cracks right off its hinges and you tumble through, scrambling back to your feet and running toward wherever you heard that scream.

Wow, it's pitch-black in here, the only light is coming from outside, and that really doesn't count for much on a night like this. Okay, okay, there are only so many rooms in this house, you should find somebody any second now -

Oh.

You step into the kitchen, and there's no one there. But what _is_ there is Riku's mom's clothes, lying on the floor.

That's... there must be a good reason for... you know that outfit, is all. You see her in it around town all the time. Except normally there's a _mom_ inside it, and it's not... all torn up in the middle, with long ragged rips in the center part of the dress.

Your eyes trace a line up along the wall next to the clothes, where there are several huge, deep gouges taken out of the solid wood.

Riku's family is made of light, you think to yourself, dumbly. That's all that would be left, if...

No. No way. That's crazy. That doesn't even make sense.

You just have to find Riku. He'll be able to explain all of this. Everything's going to be _fine._

The dining room is on the other side of the living room, and you do at least find Riku in there. He's huddled down low in the corner, in the shadows, and you almost miss him the first time you look the room over.

"Riku, there you are! Are you okay?"

Riku slowly looks up at you, and another flash of light ricochets through the house, illuminating his face for just a second. He's totally expressionless, except for a thin trail of tears under both his eyes.

"...I didn't do it," he mumbles, then his eyes open wide. "I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything wrong!" You run over to him and drop to your knees, clasping your free hand on his shoulder, your wooden sword still gripped tight in the other.

"Yeah, of course you didn't, you weirdo. What's going on? Are you okay? Is your mom... I mean, I saw... in the kitchen..."

"I don't want to talk about it," he says quietly, as if that's even a little bit of a reasonable answer. He blinks a couple of times, then wipes his eyes. Then he freezes. "Oh no. It's still here. Sora, it never _left."_

"...What?" You turn around slowly, trying not to panic, pretending there aren't terrified tears prickling in the corners of your eyes right now... and you really do see something. Or at least, you see something's shadow.

In the flickering murky thunder, you can see it cast long across the floor. Like a person, except... _wrong._ Even just seeing its shadow, you can tell the limbs are jointed all weird, and it's... bulky. It almost looks like the shadow of a knight in armor. The thunder fades, but now that you know what you're looking for, you can still see the shadow on the floor, just barely.

The shadow twitches, suddenly. Its weird limbs jitter, stop, and then jitter again. You can hear something clanking and chittering from the room over.

"We have to go," Riku whispers. "_Now,_ Sora." He rises slowly to his feet, grabs you by the arm, and starts dragging you toward the back door of his house. The thing in the kitchen makes another sound - a slow, strangled noise, like somebody trying to laugh underwater and choking instead.

Then it twitches again, and there's a loud crash as some part of its body slams into a wall.

Riku leads you out the back door, and you sprint off into the night together, hearing crash after crash from inside the house, like it's smashing itself into something over and over and over and-

"It's the end of the world," Riku says. "I think... I think this is the same as last time."

You're not going to think about that, because that's crazy. Other worlds ends, not... _yours._

"Sora," he says. "Sora, we have to go to the other world. It's the only way."

"Riku, what? Shut up? We have to get Kairi, she's still on the island! We gotta go get a boat, like, right now!"

"What? No, wait, she can't be. We can't leave this world without her."

"Well, duh, but we're not leaving this world either way, 'cause _nothing bad is gonna happen!"_

"No, you don't understand. Kairi is the key to leaving this place."

Well, it's great that Riku went crazy from stress, and you love that, but you also really don't have time for it right now!

"Let's just find Kairi, okay? We'll find Kairi, and we'll take it from there, like normal people."

Riku stares at you for a couple seconds, and you're actually afraid he might argue. But finally, he nods.

Then he grabs your shirt and yanks you to the side, pulling you down into a big shrub.

"Riku, what the-"

_"Sshh,"_ he says, clasping his hand over your mouth.

Outside the shrub, something is walking past you. You can't see it clearly through the leaves, especially with this lighting, but it's there. A loud clicking sound echoes down the street, in weird little patterns.

It takes a step. Drags its leg a little, with a long, low, whispery scraping sound. Takes another step. Click-click-click, click-click-click-click-click, click-click. Step. Drag. Step.

Half a minute later, you're pretty sure it's gone, and you're really glad you didn't have to pee.

When you finally get to the little dock where Riku and his mom's boats usually are, the whole thing is smashed to bits, and some of it's actually on fire.

"Damn," Riku mutters. "Dammit, _dammit._ We have to go back into town."

"Well, hey, there are lots of people in town, right? So... it should be safer?"

Riku sighs.

"...I hope you're right."

* * *

But you're wrong.

It's obvious by the time you make it to the town proper. Everything is a mess. The dark sky is full of purple lightning, the wind is screaming, and people are also screaming. Some of the buildings are really messed up - a couple of stores you go to all the time are just... gone, smashed into rubble.

The streets are pitted with scrapes and gouges and holes, and all over the place there are empty piles of clothes, and even a few puddles of dark, quickly-drying blood, not to mention a handful of still bodies that you really, really want to believe are gonna wake up soon.

There are hardly any creatures, though, and you try to convince yourself that it's because they're leaving or something, and not because they moved on to places that still have people in them.

"We'll have to steal a boat," Riku says. "From someone who's already evacuated, obviously."

"How would you even know which people still need their boats?"

"I'll _guess,_" he says, like you're being stupid for worrying. "Come on, Sora, we don't have the luxury of worrying about strangers right now! Do you really think anybody around here needs their _boats_ anymore?"

"They might," you say weakly, and then you round a corner and walk right into another person and _totally_ don't scream.

"Oh hey, it's you guys! I'm glad you're alright!"

"Tidus! Where are... oh man, _phew,"_ you say, trailing off when you see Rinoa, Vanille, and Angelo behind him. "Whoa, Tidus, is that a real sword?"

"Sure is," he says grimly. Its sharp edge glitters gray in the dim light. Behind him, Vanille is clearly carrying her weird staff, and Rinoa's clutching a kitchen knife in one hand. You try really hard not to feel lame about the wooden sword you're still carrying. At least you have something. Riku's just kind of here.

"Guys, is there anyone else left over there?" Rinoa's already walking past you to look around the corner, the knife held out like she's totally ready to stab something.

"No," Riku says.

"Maybe," you say.

You both give each other a very different look.

"Tidus, Kairi's still out on the island," you say.

"What? No way." He tightens his grip on his sword. "Damn! We've been looking for survivors and trying to clear out some of those _things._ A lot of the magic users are gathering at the school building to try to keep everybody safe. I think your aunt's there, Sora. Riku, where's your mom?"

"She's fine," Riku says calmly. Rinoa turns back to look at him dubiously for a second.

"We can't leave Kairi, okay? She's all alone out there. I have to do something. I _have_ to."

Are you trying to convince them, or yourself?

"Oh well," Vanille says, way too brightly. "I think we're pretty much done looking around here, don't you guys?"

"...Maybe," Tidus says reluctantly. "Sora, why don't you kids go hole up in the school? We'll try to find Kairi."

"We're not _kids,"_ Riku says angrily. Tidus rolls his eyes.

"Fine, you _guys,_ whatever. Just... leave it to us."

"No way! We're coming, and that's final!" You wish you sounded a little less hysterical and a little more confident.

"We _could_ use some more helping hands," Vanille says.

"No," Rinoa says. "We're not putting them in danger. I'm not okay with..." But she trails off, looking right at you specifically, like she's just realized something. Then she swears under her breath. "...Fine. Fine, okay. But we're making it quick."

The three of them lead you and Riku on through the dark night, toward their neighborhood where there's still some boats, and you try your hardest to pretend you don't notice how the wind is stronger than ever before, and there's less and less time between every two flashes of lightning.

* * *

The ride there is bad. It's even worse than you were afraid it would be.

"Oh God," Rinoa says more than once, her voice tiny enough that she sounds like somebody else. "Oh God, they're so huge."

Everyone's huddled down low in the rowboat, to make yourselves harder to see, but... you're not even sure you have to worry. There could be ants all over the boat and you wouldn't see them in the dark like this, and you get the feeling the things out in the water feel the same way about you.

There are dozens of them, just... _walking through the sea._ The water only comes up to their thighs. You didn't know anything that big could even exist. They're out there, enormous murky shadows towering into the black, and when the angle is just right you think you might be able to see _through_ holes in the middle of them.

Their faces are indistinct, too high and too dark to make out, other than their bright eyes, burning like golden lanterns in the sky.

"Where are they going?" Tidus wonders out loud.

"To the other islands," Riku says, and you really, _really_ wish that didn't make sense.

You also really wish it didn't look like they were coming from the same island Kairi is stranded on.

* * *

When you get to the island, things go from worse to worst.

"...Guys, I don't think we can fight those," Vanille says. Even Tidus just nods.

"A few, maybe, one or two at a time," he says. "But not... _that."_

The whole island is overrun. The wind is even stronger here, and you'd swear it's darker and colder, too, and now you know where most of the purple lightning was striking. The shores and the trees are _swarming_ with creatures, hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes.

"We can save her," you say, because it's better than thinking about the end of the world. "There's gotta be a way."

"...Right," Tidus says. "Right, yeah. Focus on that."

You're all in the same boat here, in a couple senses of the phrase. Focusing on your mission is the only thing keeping any of you from freaking out about the definitely-not-end-of-the-world, and you're still freaking out about it.

"If we try to come in the front, we'll get all their attention for sure." Riku is the only one here who sounds calm, but... is he, really? "Probably even those big ones in the water. We're going to have to paddle around to the back of the island."

Everyone chips in to keep the rowboat moving smoothly, and the whole way you can tell everybody is equally sure you're all about to die... but you make it, somehow. The things in the water have better stuff to think about, apparently.

The rear of the island actually _is_ less overrun for some reason, so you start paddling the boat closer toward the rocks. If you can just land it _somewhere_ here, there's a winding little path up in the cliff face that leads pretty much right to the scary cave, and Kairi's either in there or she's... she's... well, she's definitely in there.

If you can all just stay quiet and be real careful, then everything might still be okay.

And then Angelo jumps out of the boat and starts swimming for the rocks. Oh, crap, that's right, he loves Kairi, doesn't he?

_"Angelo, come back!"_ Rinoa calls weakly out over the water, but he doesn't. He keeps swimming.

And then, from up over the rocks, creatures start pouring down into the water one by one. But Angelo is a dog, he can't fight monsters, can he? Somebody has to help him.

...Somebody has to, right?

Somebody else, maybe?

Rinoa stands up at the edge of the boat, tossing her knife down onto the floor, and her hands shine with magic that coalesces into thick, sticky balls of flame. She starts hurling them at the stream of monsters.

"Angelo, come back, please, _please,_ come _back!"_ You've never actually seen anyone use magic to fight like this before. The closest thing was Vanille lighting a fire pit without any tools. Rinoa's fireballs crash into the shadows, bursting into bright waves of heat, and a few of them chitter and burn into wisps of smoke.

A few of them, but not enough to make a difference.

Angelo is still swimming, though, and the first of the shadows have almost reached him.

"Angelo, come here, boy! Come back to the boat!" You lean over the edge and join in calling for him, hoping maybe he'll listen to both of you together.

"Guys, keep it down, they're gonna hear us! Guys, _come on!"_ Tidus, clearly panicking, doesn't seem to notice that he's starting to get even louder than you two. Riku grabs your shirt and pulls you back down into the rowboat, covering your mouth. You bite him a little, but he doesn't even notice.

"We have to leave this world. When we get Kairi, she can take us away from here. It's the only chance we have to survive." Riku still sounds like he's not even scared... or like he's even anything, really. His voice is so, so flat.

Rinoa is still calling for Angelo and casting spells. Vanille is just... sitting there, staring. You've never seen her like this. You can't even begin to guess what she's thinking.

"It's okay. Every world has to end someday," Riku says. "That doesn't mean we have to end."

Vanille shuts her eyes for a second. Then, all of a sudden, she stands up, grips her staff tight, and leaps out into the water.

"Vanille, stop! What are you _doing?!"_ Tidus reaches out for her helplessly, but obviously doesn't even come close, since his arms are the length of a person's arms.

The monsters immediately turn from Angelo to Vanille, and they swarm her twice as fast. Rinoa, still yelling, keeps throwing fireballs faster and faster, and then suddenly switches to little spears of ice. She's breathing hard, like she's been running for an hour, or working out or something.

And the first of the monsters finally get to her. Little ones, weird naked dark little shadowy things with big heads and long fingers that wrap around her arms and her shoulders. Something in her chest is glowing bright pink - is that... is that her _heart?_

Is that even possible?

"Rinoa, please stop," Vanille says impossibly calmly. Rinoa does not stop. "Guys, stop her. Rinoa's from a world with weird magic. If she keeps using it like this, she'll run out forever, there's no way to get more on Destiny Islands."

Tidus actually looks shocked to hear that. Did he not know? You didn't know, obviously, but you're not nearly as close to her. He stares for a second, then yanks Rinoa back while she struggles and yells at him.

You feel sick, like you're gonna throw up, or maybe like you're gonna wake up. You _are_ probably about to wake up, right? You're definitely gonna wake up, any second now.

"Sorry for getting myself killed for somebody's dog," Vanille says, laughing a little. Her voice is so... empty. The glowing heart-shape in her chest is getting brighter and clearer by the second as the shadow-things climb all over her. "I didn't really... wanna be here in the first place. And if the world can just end on me... end all over again... I just... I want out."

"No, stop it, please, _come back,"_ Rinoa wails, but it's pretty clear to everybody that Vanille couldn't do that now even if she wanted to, and it doesn't sound like she wants to.

"Sorry, Fang," Vanille mumbles. "If you could see me now, you'd probably... be pretty..."

And then, just like that, the shining heart-shape turns as black as oil and disappears.

And then Vanille disappears, too. One second she's there, and the next... she isn't.

Rinoa elbows Tidus in the stomach and launches a huge blast of lightning down into the water, poofing a handful of monsters into smoke. Then Tidus gets hold of her again and wrestles her down into the boat while she sobs.

"Keep paddling, Sora," Riku says, and you can't even imagine making a decision for yourself right now, so you just nod and get to it.

Angelo's nowhere to be seen. You hope that means he made it up onto the rocks while nobody was paying attention.

The monsters haven't come for you yet, but it's gotta happen soon, right? They...

For an instant, a tiny split second, everything goes black and quiet, like a thick dark cloth suddenly fell over the whole universe. Then it's over.

In the water where Vanille disappeared, there's a new monster that wasn't there before. It's the size of a very very tall person, maybe, inky black shadow instead of skin, yellow eyes glowing in the dark, with what must be at least a dozen long arms fanning out from its shoulders, long ragged strips of pink cloth flowing off them like ribbons, or maybe like feathers from a dead bird's wing.

The new monster turns to the boat for a second, cocks its head to the side like it's curious. Then its arms straighten up above it, and it slips down into the dark water without a sound.

Rinoa finally stops struggling. She leans back against Tidus, who still hasn't let her go, hugging herself.

"I'm scared," she says dumbly, like a little kid. "I don't want... I... Squall, please help me..."

"...Hey, it's okay," you say, and you kinda think you sound even more like a little kid than Rinoa does. "It's not like she's dead, right?" You stare down at the water where the new monster dove away. All of you _must_ be thinking the same thing, right? It's obvious, isn't it? "Maybe... maybe we can turn her back?"

"Sora, we don't know that," Riku says irritably for some reason. "For all we know that thing is just made _out_ of her."

"It _is_ her," you say, because that's bad, but maybe it's a kind of bad you can imagine living with. "It's definitely her, and it's not too late!"

"Maybe... maybe I could... maybe it's not too late," Rinoa says. Tidus shoots you a furious glare and tightens his arms around Rinoa's stomach where he's still holding onto her.

"Nope. No way. Not even taking a chance on that. Riku's right, there's no way to know. Nobody is gonna die tonight just for a shot in the dark."

The look on Rinoa's face is definitely what somebody has on them when they've just been stabbed by somebody they trusted. She slumps back against Tidus again and breaks down sobbing.

"Come on, Tidus, don't be a jerk!" If you weren't busy paddling, you'd get up and give him a better piece of your mind.

"I said, _nobody. Is. Dying. Over. This,"_ Tidus says, biting off the words one at a time.

"Squall..." Rinoa says through her sobs. "Are you still out there? Still... having to hurt people? Am I - am I supposed to hope it's not you anymore? Is it selfish if I... if I still want to believe you were in there somewhere? Even though I'm not there to stop you myself?"

Nobody has any idea what to say to _that._

"We should turn around," Tidus says suddenly. "We should go back. This was stupid. We still have a chance if we all stick together."

"We're not turning around, you idiot," Riku says, sitting up straighter. "None of us is getting off this world without Kairi, and none of us is living through tonight if we don't get off this world!"

"You're hysterical," Tidus says. "I'm sorry about your _mom_ or whatever, but you have to deal with it! We're not all getting killed because of your obsession!"

"Just try and make me," Riku says grimly. "I'm not afraid to push you overboard if that's what it takes."

Rinoa's hardly even moving anymore. She's just sitting there, crying quietly. You want to get in the middle of this, tell them both to calm down, but what if you just make it worse? What happens if they get even madder, and one of them remembers Tidus's sword is still lying in the boat a couple of feet away?

"Rinoa, help me paddle. We've gotta go fast," you whisper. You're afraid she won't even hear you, but she looks up a second later. "Please, we can't waste any time."

...Finally, she nods, wriggling out of a distracted Tidus's grasp, and the two of you start trying to close the gap to the shore, as Riku and Tidus stare daggers at each other. Something tells you neither of them is about to back down.

"Riku. This is your last chance to be a reasonable human being. I'm not screwing... a... round..." Tidus trails off mid-sentence. He's staring over your shoulder, at something behind the boat.

"Tidus, what are..." Riku says, turning to look. His eyes widen.

"Yuna? Is it... really you?" Tidus takes a step toward the back of the boat, past Riku, and everyone turns to see what they're looking at. "Yuna, I... I missed you so much."

He's staring out into the black water, where you can see the thing that formed where Vanille disappeared holding itself above the surface, its many arms paddling serenely.

"Tidus," Rinoa says slowly. "That's... not Yuna."

"What?" He turns to her, confused. "Rinoa, I know she's not _your_ friend, but I think I'd recognize Yuna anywhere, alright?"

"No, that's... uh..." You're not even sure what to say to that. "That's definitely the thing that... that's not even a person?"

Tidus shakes his head. His eyes are wide and glossy.

"I'm not leaving you behind again," he says, and takes another step toward the water. Rinoa lets her paddle clatter to the floor and leaps up, tackling him down into the boat like he did to her just a couple minutes ago. A second later you lurch over and try to help her hold him down.

"Riku, help us _stop_ him," you hiss, but Riku's already busying himself grabbing the paddles you and Rinoa dropped, working them in and out of the water furiously.

"Let me go, you idiots!" Tidus thrashes around like a huge fish on a line. Even you and Rinoa together can barely keep him still - it's not that he's really stronger than you, but he's putting everything he's got into it, while Rinoa is exhausted and you're sorta watching everything from fifty feet away.

"We're not letting you go, you crazy jerk," you say. Tidus goes slack, and for a single stupid second you think you somehow got through to him. Then he lunges forward with all his strength, knocking you off balance, and the two of you tumble down into the freezing water together.

It's cold. It's so, so cold. You don't think you've ever been in water this cold. It's so cold that by the third or fourth second of thrashing toward the surface to try to breathe, it's hardly even cold anymore.

Somebody's screaming. Maybe it's Rinoa, or maybe it's you. And then, suddenly, you feel hands grasping your upper arms, hooking under them, and Riku is hauling you back into the rowboat. You scramble up out of the water, shivering and struggling for breath.

At the edge of the boat, Rinoa's leaning down toward the water, trying to pull Tidus back, but unlike you, Tidus isn't cooperating. He breaks out of her grasp almost immediately, and... there's really nothing anybody can do after that.

Rinoa sobs helplessly, her hands trailing down into the cold water. Tidus swims through the freezing water like he doesn't even feel the cold, toward the monster that might be Vanille, and when he reaches it, seven or eight of those long dark arms unfold from the water and wrap around his back, hugging him close to its chest.

Then the arms get tighter. And tighter. And finally Tidus struggles, but there's nothing he can do, not against eight arms all at once...

And then there's a horrible, horrible _cracking_ sound, and he slumps over, his head hanging loosely against the monster's shoulder.

You're expecting to see the glowing heart-shape again... or maybe you're expecting to see him burst into light. You're too horrified to look away, so you see what actually happens with horrible, perfect clarity.

Tidus's body slowly dissolves into a pillar of black smoke.

And then Tidus is gone, and the monster that might have been Vanille raises its arms again, and once more it disappears beneath the waves.

"...Why did he... what was that? Why didn't he turn into light?" Should you be glad? Does that mean he didn't... die? Does that even make sense?

Rinoa is still crying, still kind of dangling dangerously close to the water. You kind of grab her by the shoulder and try to get her to move. It really only works because she's too floppy to resist, not because she accepts it. Her eyes are red from crying and she looks like she hasn't slept in a month.

"It's gonna be okay," you say, hoping she'll believe it, even though there's really no reason she would. "It's... it's gonna..."

"I'm getting Sora out of here no matter what," Riku says, still paddling. "Are you going to help, or are you going to get in the way?" You turn to glare at Riku, because what the _heck,_ Riku?

Rinoa sniffles, and when she answers, she sounds almost as dead inside as Vanille did at... at the end, there.

"Do you think... Kairi might be in that cave you guys always go to?"

"Why there?" Riku asks, which is weird, because you already thought it was obvious she'd be there, and it seems like Rinoa does too. And it _is_ obvious, because that's the only place she could maybe be and still be okay, and she's _okay,_ so she must be there.

"I don't know. You three spend so much time there. I think Angelo is probably going there, too. He's smart like that, and I'm sure he wanted to find her. Angelo... loves Kairi." She pauses a second before saying 'loves', like she was considering using a different word.

"Just help me paddle," Riku says tersely. She shrugs helplessly and gets to it. You just sit there, shivering and feeling very disoriented and far away, watching them work. You know you should be helping, but...

...You don't even know what the 'but' is, but it's there.

Riku and Rinoa bring the boat around, quietly as they can, and finally you're there, the boat thunking loosely up against the lower edge of the rocks.

"Hey," Rinoa says quietly. "Will it be good enough if you two can get into the cave? Even if you can't get back out after?"

Riku looks at her for a long time, biting his lip a little.

"...Yeah. I can take it from there."

"Riku, what's going on," you say, still hugging yourself to try to capture a little warmth.

"I've used a lot of different magic tonight," Rinoa says, "and when I used Holy to take out one of the bigger ones before I ran into you guys, it really got some attention. If I stay in the boat and throw everything I've got at them, and you run for it, you'll probably have time to get in there."

"But... what's going to happen to you?" Your voice falters as you try to keep your teeth from chattering.

"Rinoa is going to get out of there and go somewhere safe," Riku says, before she can answer. That makes sense. It would be really dumb to do anything else, right?

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" You have to make sure, is all.

Riku looks at Rinoa. You're not sure what the expression on his face is supposed to mean.

"Yeah," Rinoa says. "I'll be okay."

"...Okay," you say, feeling a little bit more calm. "Okay, good."

"Sora," she says, "Make sure you get Kairi out of there, okay? I can tell you're really important to her." She's still crying, quietly. You're pretty sure she's been crying the whole time.

"I will. Thanks, Rinoa." For some reason, that just makes her cry even harder.

"Time to go," Riku says, helping you up to your feet. He climbs deftly up onto the rocks, then gets down low and helps haul you up after him. You still feel so cold and weak. "Rinoa, are you ready?"

"Sora," Rinoa says, wiping her eyes. "Promise me you'll..." She hesitates. "No, I'm not going to make you promise. Just... please do everything you can for her, okay?"

You just nod.

"Good luck, guys," Rinoa says. "Run."

Riku takes you by the arm and together, you sprint up the narrow path, barely keeping your footing in the dark and the wind, and behind you the rocky shore erupts with light.

* * *

It's dark in the cave, even for a cave that's supposed to be dark. You can only see anything because it's been so dark in general that your eyes are really adjusted.

You look the cave over once. Then twice. Then a third time. But... you don't see Kairi. Where did she go? Where could she be?

Angelo _is_ here, though. He's standing over near the door, snuffling strangely at the open air. Is he... okay? You look away for a second, at the door, which is open for the first time ever, and then back to Angelo, and - _oh._

There's Kairi. She's right there, huddled down low on the floor in the dark by the open door, and Angelo is trying to comfort her, licking her hand while she sobs. How long has she been here, alone in the dark while the world fell apart around her? Guilt stabs through your chest like a fistful of needles.

"...Sora," Kairi says distantly, finally looking up at you. You try to run to her, but Riku grabs you by the arm and stops you.

"Sora, what're you doing? Can't you see he's acting weird? Something might be wrong with him." What? What the heck is Riku talking about? You probably can't break away from Riku in this state, and you don't really want to distrust him enough to try, but... isn't _he_ the one who's acting weird?

"Riku, she's..." Right there, you want to say, but it feels so redundant.

"Damn, I can't believe she's not _here,"_ Riku mutters under his breath. "What do I do, what do I _do,_ what do... I... _oh."_

He's staring at the door, now. That's right, isn't it kinda weird for that door to be open? It's been locked basically your whole lives, hasn't it? But now it's just... thrown wide, and on the other side you can't see anything but perfect darkness, a black so deep it almost makes you dizzy to strain to see anything inside.

And is there... _wind,_ coming from inside the door? That doesn't make any sense at all.

"I see," Riku says, suddenly calm. "I get it. I finally know what I have to do."

"Uh, Riku? What do you mean?" It's hard to place why, but you really don't like the way he's talking right now. You just... want to go run to Kairi, hug her and make sure she's okay. She's still just standing there, crying silently, shrouded in shadows.

Angelo suddenly twitches away from Kairi. He takes a few faltering little doggy steps back toward the entrance of the cave, and... you'd almost swear he's glowing, just a little bit. Or is it just his chest that's glowing?

"The door has opened," he says, like that explains everything, or anything. "The door has _opened_, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!"

"What are you talking about? What's that got to do with the door?" And... you can't explain it, but something about the way he says 'we' feels very... _specific._ "We've gotta make sure Kairi is okay!" Can't he just let go of you for one second, so you can look?

And what about Angelo? He's lying on the floor, now, panting, and a bright pink light is shining out from his middle.

"Kairi's coming with us!"

He almost sounds angry about it.

"I know, Riku, I just-"

"Once we step through, we'll probably never come back," Riku says, cutting you off completely. "We may never see our friends and parents again. There's no turning back. But this is our only chance. We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!"

"Riku, who are you trying to convince?"

He doesn't answer. He finally lets go of your arm, walks towards the door. Then, just before he crosses it, he turns to face you, holding out his hand.

"Trust me, Sora," he says, and it's the first thing he's said since you came in here that sounded like words Riku would say.

You take a step forward, hesitantly. Then you feel... really stupid. It's Riku. This is _Riku._ So what if he's acting weird? People keep turning into monsters and dying, _nobody's_ acting normal. You're sure not acting normal! What are you gonna do, sit here and _not trust Riku?_

No way. Not a chance.

So you follow him toward the door, and you guess also toward Kairi, and toward the dog that's lying motionless on the floor.

And then, from outside the cave, you can hear a girl scream. You panic, turn around and run for the entrance, looking down the path.

The boat is still there, but Rinoa isn't in it.

"Riku," you say, "Where did Rinoa go? She... she went somewhere safe, right? You promise?"

But Riku is still just standing there in front of the door, hand outstretched, waiting, and he doesn't say anything at all.

She's fine. Of course she's fine. You don't have time for Rinoa to not be fine.

You run back across the cave and grab Riku's hand...

...And at that second, the ground starts to shake. You stumble and fall to your knees, grasping desperately for Riku, and the stone underneath you begins to split apart, and you realize all at once that you're not going to make it.

Then Riku reaches out and grabs you by the hand, pulling you across the divide. You don't have time to worry about whether you're being weird or embarrassing yourself, you just wrap your arms around him and cling, like you're afraid the universe will rip him away if you even come close to letting go.

"...Sora..." Kairi murmurs from behind you, and you realize with horror that she's probably on the other side of the widening crack. What's wrong with you? Why do you keep forgetting she's here?

Something heavy and soft flops against the back of your legs and then slips away, and you pretend really, really hard that Angelo's body didn't just fall into the abyss.

And then, like the meanest joke that anybody ever told, you feel Riku starting to pull away. Tendrils of something cold and black and inky are reaching out from the darkness inside the door, wrapping around him, pulling him in.

You stand there, struggling to hold onto Riku while your other hand reaches back to feel for Kairi there in the dark, and the ground shakes, and the tendrils latch on tighter, and as they start to cover him so completely that they brush up against you too, they burn your skin like the coldest ice you've ever touched.

And as the darkness sears you, and the darkness pulls, and the cave comes apart beneath your feet, you lose your balance and fall backwards, onto the other side of the crack.

You look up at Riku as you instinctively shuffle back away from the widening gap. His hand is still outstretched. You can't really see his expression in the dark, but you see his mouth move, all the same.

_"Trust me, Sora,"_ he mouths, and the gap shatters open another foot, and Riku disappears into the dark.

It's just you and Kairi, now. Kairi, who's still standing there, so slight and wrapped in darkness that you'd almost swear you can see right through her.

You reach out your hand for Kairi, the only person left in the whole world. She stares at you like she doesn't understand what's happening.

Then, slowly, she takes your hand...

...And the moment she touches it, she's gone.

"K... Kairi? _Kairi!_ Where are you?" You stumble forward as the cave lurches again, trying to get distance from the crack and the door. "Rinoa? Anybody? Is anybody there?"

But nobody is.

No, wait.

Somebody is.

Some_thing_ is.

At the entrance of the cave, you see it, blocking the only way out. It's the same monster you saw at Riku's house, the one that... the one that hurt his mom, or at least it's the same _kind_ of monster.

Wow.

This is a really dumb way to die.

...Why is this all so _familiar?_

"Oh, that's right," you mumble to yourself as the monster chitters and twitches and stumbles drunkenly toward you. "That's what it was. I saw these things in my dream."

What a silly time to remember something like that.

What a weird dream, too.

There were monsters, tons of them, swarming out of the dark, and... you had a weapon, didn't you? A sword, but not a sword. Something golden and shining and warm. Something like...

...Something like a key.

Something like the key you're holding in your hand right now.

Wait, what? Where did... where did _that_ come from?!

The monster makes that same horrible noise, laughing and drowning and chittering and clanking its rusty armor plates. It extends awful blood-red claws the size of your forearms, and all at once, it moves with a clear purpose, lunging forward to rip you apart.

You grip the key(blade) in both your hands, and you swing.

The key leaves a narrow trail of golden light behind it, like the afterimages of a lantern carried in a dark basement, and it slices one of the thing's arms clean off. It shrieks horribly, stumbling away, wisps of black smoke pouring from the stump.

You kinda can't believe that _worked._

Then, taking advantage of your hesitation, it lunges again with the remaining claw, and this time you're not at all ready, and its heavy armored body bowls you over onto the ground, your head hanging a couple of inches over the abyss. You yell in pain and thrust the key(blade) up reflexively.

The monster stiffens. Then it goes limp and slumps over on top of you, crushing you down against the cold stone, and a second later the weight lessens as it fades away. You must've rammed the key right through it.

You slowly pick yourself up from the ground, bruised and aching, breathing hard, your heart pounding in your chest...

...And all at once, half a dozen more of the monsters are on top of you. They must have wandered in while you were fighting.

You swing wildly, screaming like a scared little kid, and you stumble backward towards the widening hole, and the obvious happens:

You lose your footing and you fall.

You fall down, and down, into the crack in the earth, into the dark. You fall a long way.

Even farther down below you, down and down and down and down in the darkness, you think you can see a distant light like twinkling stars.

...And then you don't see anything at all.


	3. The Hole at the Bottom of the Universe

**(sora)**

You wake up real, _real_ slow. Ugh, what were you even doing last night? Your head is pounding and you're sore all over, and you're lying on something really hard, like a floor or a street.

Something cold and a little wet snoofles against your hand. You wave it away.

"Ugh... quit it, Angelo," you mumble, but the snoofling continues. You force yourself to open your blurry eyes and sit up slowly.

...Oh. That's not Angelo at all. This is a longer, thinner, yellower dog that you don't think you've ever met before. Sure seems friendly, though.

As your eyes come into focus a little, you slowly realize it's still night-time.

Then you realize you have absolutely no clue where you are.

You're lying on the floor of a shadowy alley, paved brown stone rough and chilly against your legs, and it's a clear, cool night, the narrow slice of sky you can see between buildings is bursting with bright stars.

The dog gently fastens his teeth on the wallet chain dangling out of your pocket and tugs.

"Hey, what're you doing, boy? Cut it out!" He doesn't though. Or she? You don't really want to check, but for some reason you're just getting boy dog vibes. He tugs some more, and... maybe he wants you to follow him? Is he not getting fed, or something?

Oh well. You guess you've got nothing better to do.

It's too bad Kairi's not here right now. She's way better at getting animals to not do dumb stuff.

...You stop dead just before you leave the mouth of the alley, feeling like your heart just turned upside down and dropped like an anchor into your stomach.

You run out onto the street, and you don't even slightly recognize the city around you.

The buildings here are weird - kinda heavy and sturdy and grim, but also weirdly whimsical wherever the wooden parts of them are, their dark wooden railings and awnings wavy and intricately carved, and the warm yellow light pouring through most of the windows is inviting. These are definitely not the kind of houses you'd build on a warm island.

It's night-time alright, but the sky is so clear and the stars are so bright that when you combine them with the weird, almost-spooky lanterns all over the place, you can see pretty good.

Wow, the stars really _are_ bright, and... there sure seem to be a lot of them. You stare at them for a while, trying to decide exactly what it is about them that's bothering you, and then it clicks.

You don't know _any_ of these constellations. Not a single one.

"Hey, Riku," you say to nobody in particular, "I guess you were right."

The dog leads you on, deeper into the winding streets of somebody else's world.

* * *

A couple minutes later, you've already kinda decided you don't like this place.

It's weird, and gloomy, and everything is just _off,_ and all the people you see look so unhappy. They look like they've barely got anything to live for. Like... people who forgot what it was like to want to see tomorrow.

You wander around in a daze, not thinking about monsters at all, not thinking about how all the stars are wrong, not thinking about _(anybody else)_, and then you walk right into...

"Hey, you okay there, kiddo?"

Oh. That man is a bear.

"Uh... uh, I mean..."

That man is a bear wearing pants. They're unbuckled and unzipped to fit his huge sloshy bear stomach.

The bear-man leans down, a worried look on his face.

"Uh oh. You're new around these parts, ain't you?"

"I... don't know? I think so?" When did you become somebody who has so much trouble _talking?_ Is it just because he's a bear? It's at least a little bit because he's a bear.

The bear scratches his head with his huge bear claws and sighs.

"Well, ain't that a shame. How long you been here, anyway?"

"I... I don't know! I just woke up in an alley a couple minutes ago!"

"Hmmmm," he says, his big bear-brow furrowed. "Hmmmmmmmm. Hey, Pluto, what're you doin' there, boy? Leave the poor kid alone!"

Is Pluto... the dog? Before you have a chance to ask, the bear, who is a man and also a bear, lumbers off to a nearby pile of tools and grabs a rake, shooing the dog away with it.

"There ya go," he says as Pluto scurries around a corner, then slowly peeks his little yellow head back around it to stare at you. "Tell ya what, kid, you're gonna need somewhere to sleep. There's a program for _displaced folks_, gets you put up in a hotel for a couple weeks to get'cha back on your feet."

"Oh," you say. "Uh... okay?"

"Head on down Sideways Street a block or two 'til it crosses North Star Avenue, then make a left. Another couple streets down and you'll come up on the town square. Run along through there and you'll find ol' Cid's repair shop. Talk to the girl with the braid over there, she'll get you sorted out just fine. Unless they're outta voucher kits... but hey, probably not."

"Uh... down _what_-ways street?" That wasn't exactly super complicated, but it all just kind of went in one ear and out the other one anyway. You just haven't got room for stuff like directions right now, is all.

"Ah, you know what, it's just about lunch anyways. C'mon, little pal, follow along."

And just like that he heads off down the street, swaying precariously as he walks on two legs, and none of the other downtrodden people on the street give him a second look, even though he's a bear in pants.

Behind you, the yellow dog named Pluto is still trailing along in the middle distance. It's weird. If Kairi was here that'd make sense, dogs can't get enough of Kairi, but you can't think of anything special about you.

Wait, what does he mean by _lunch?_ Maybe bears just... eat at night?

* * *

The town square isn't anything like the one on Destiny Islands. By comparison it's sort of... nicer, a little spookier, and huge city walls towering above you make it feel oddly cramped, even though it really isn't. There's a lot of interesting stuff here - restaurants, a big postbox, a store with a big sign over it that just says 'ITEM', which you guess probably does cover it - and you kinda wish you cared.

"Alrighty, kiddo," the bear says, pointing up a big staircase toward a building marked 'CID'S REPAIRS', which seems a lot more descriptive than 'ITEM.' "You just head on up there whenever you're ready. Y'ever need any help, don't hesitate to come find your new pal Baloo."

You're just going to assume that's his name. Maybe it's a reasonable name, for a bear.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. Thanks a lot, Baloo." You wish you felt as grateful as you're trying to sound.

He just waves and begins lumbering ponderously back down the street, humming a little bear song as he goes.

Is the repair shop even going to be open at this hour? What time is it, anyway? Oh, hey, there's actually a digital clock hanging on one of the walls of the open-air restaurant over there. It's about...

...It's about... noon.

Oh.

Almost involuntarily, you look up again at the twinkling night sky overhead.

Then you do your best to shake it off and just... get moving. The bear guy is right, shelter's probably super important or something. Having somewhere to be that's not full of depressed people staring would be super great, too.

Just as you're reaching the stairs, you notice there's a big palm tree to one side of them, which seems kinda out of place here. How would that even grow in a town like this? You wander over, still feeling a bit like you're in a dream,

And when you get there you stop dead, because you see something impossible.

One time, maybe two or three years ago, Riku decided you should carve your names into a tree for some reason. Probably he just got a new knife or something and wanted an excuse to use it? You can't really remember anymore. But it was harder than he expected, and even getting started took forever, and then he didn't want to get the blade dull, so he gave up, and you never really bothered to try with yours.

All he actually carved was one big, rough "R", right at his eye level back then, which is about where your eye level is now.

...You stretch out your hand to touch the old gouges in the tree, like you think that if you try to feel them, they'll disappear _(like Kairi)_. But they don't. They're rough and cold and real under your fingertips.

"How did this _get_ here?" That just... doesn't make any sense. That's impossible.

"Just showed up yesterday," a passing stranger says, stopping to look. "Must be from another world that just went under. I'm sure we'll be finding more out of place stuff soon enough, once people start noticing whatever's not supposed to be there."

You swallow, hard.

Then you run all the way up the stairs and into the shop, shutting the door a little too hard behind you, because if you can find something different to think about _right now,_ you might still stop yourself from crying.

Something snuffles at your ankle, and you realize suddenly that Pluto must've followed you right in. You're about to mumble something like 'hey, don't come in here, this place is for people,' but then you think about the talking bear, and you wonder... are _dogs_ people here? What if dogs have been people all along?

_(Something heavy and soft flops against the back of your legs and then slips away, and you-)_

...Maybe not _all_ dogs are people.

"Hey!" A gruff, middle-aged man's voice stabs through the shop, and your head snaps up from staring at Pluto. "Get that dog outta my store. If it's got four legs and it doesn't talk, it ain't comin' in here."

"Oh, uh, sorry?" You crack the door and try to nudge Pluto out; he puts up a pretty good fight, but eventually you get him through and close it up again. "He's not my dog or anything, I don't know why he's following me around."

"So, what can I do for ya?" The owner of the voice steps properly into the room, carrying a big box of scrap metal and dropping it with a deafening thunk behind the counter. Maybe this is Cid? He does seem like the kind of guy who'd had a repair shop named after him.

"A... bear told me to come here? To find a girl? I guess I'm new here, and I don't... have a place to stay, or..." You trail off awkwardly. How do you even explain a situation like this? It's not something you want to _think_ about in clear terms, let alone lay out for a stranger.

"Old Baloo had you sidestep the bureaucracy, huh?" That's definitely a voice that belongs to a girl, which seems like a step in the right direction, or at least a step in the direction a bear thought you should go. "That guy. Always gotta do things the easy way."

A girl who's a few years older than you - maybe even a Young Woman, just barely - follows the old man into the room, carrying a big staff. She's kind of a stark contrast to the gloominess of everything else in this place, wearing a pink dress and a pink ribbon, her hair in a long brown braid. Her green eyes are bright, and the smile on her face actually reaches them.

"So, what's your name?" She leans forward, putting her elbows on the counter, and motions for you to come closer.

"Uh, it's Sora."

"Nice to meet you, Sora! Welcome to Traverse Town, our lovely little hole at the bottom of the universe." The old man wanders back into the other room as she talks. "Sorry you're here, but just try to remember this, okay? You made it. You're still breathing."

All of a sudden there's a real big lump in your throat. It's... it's not like she's _wrong,_ but... this sure doesn't _feel_ like "making it," especially when so many other people, well...

...Didn't.

"Thanks," you say, because you can't think of anything better.

"O-_kay!_ Gimme just a sec." The girl leans down behind the counter, rummaging around. "Oh, come on, really? _Cid!"_ She turns her head and yells toward the back room. "_What'd you do with those vouchers?"_

_"Behind that big can of oil,"_ he shouts back.

"Why would you even... ugh, whatever." She turns back to the counter. A few objects inside thunk around, and then she straightens back up with a tiny grunt and reaches out to hand you some kind of little envelope. You take it, probably visibly confused.

"Uh, thanks, I think? What is this, exactly?"

"It's a voucher kit," she says. "Every new resident gets one. There's a few things in there - cards, mostly. That'll get you two weeks in a hotel and some free food, some other necessities too. Wish we could do more, but things are tight around here at the best of times, and these really aren't the best of times."

"It's okay," you say reflexively, although you're not sure if it actually is. "Do you get a lot of... _new residents?_ I think there were only a handful back home." Well, that's not counting any kids born to people who weren't native to Destiny Islands, but those are new in a real different way.

"We sure do. There's a reason I called it the hole at the bottom of the universe. When a world's heart gets stolen, more often than not the people and places that survive wind up here." She smiles ruefully. "Guess that's a blessing and a curse, huh?"

"A world's _heart?_ Is that what happened to... I mean..." It's dumb, but you really don't want to have to say it.

"Yep. Heartless'll do that to ya. Not even the worlds themselves are safe. But hey, let's not dwell on that stuff right now, okay? You should be focusing on getting settled!"

"Uh, right. Yeah. Totally." You slip the envelope into your pocket for now.

"Let's see... oh, right! After your two weeks are up they'll start charging for a room, but it takes a while to work up to full price. There's contact info in there too - shelters, coordinators for shared housing, some people who can help you find work, professional guilds... If you're not an adult where you're from, somebody can help you find a foster family, but you don't _have_ to do that, so don't feel pressured."

That's, uh... a lot of information, actually, and it's really weird, and really scary, and you really really want to just... go home and change into your own warm pajamas and lay down on your own warm bed in your own room, and sleep for about a week.

But... but maybe this will be okay? Maybe if you try super, _super_ hard to be positive, this can be kind of an adventure? You _are_ finally seeing another world, and that's probably cool!

_(And maybe that's what Vanille told herself every time she smiled that sad, empty smile.)_

"Okay, yeah. That's great." It's not, but maybe anything that's Not Awful right now _is_ basically your new Great. You're struggling to think of what to say next when you hear the tinkle of a bell behind you and the door creaking open. Huh, you didn't even notice that bell when _you_ came in.

"Hey there! Welcome to Cid's Repairs, your best stop for fixing whatever you broke. How can I help you today?" The words roll off her tongue so smoothly that you have to wonder how many times she's said that exact sentence.

Well, you might as well turn around and see who's there. Maybe it'll be another bear, or like... a goat, or a lizard with six heads.

But it's not a bear. It's Riku.

You stare at him for a long, frozen second. He stares back.

...No way. Is this actually happening?

One second, you're standing by the counter with your jaw hanging a little bit open, and the next you're all the way across the room, hugging Riku as hard as you can, and tears are streaming down your face, but you really don't have the presence of mind to care.

"I thought - I thought I'd never see you again," you choke out. "You... you got sucked into that door, and I thought you were probably..."

For a moment, just one spooky little moment, you suddenly think to yourself, _what if it's not Riku, what if I'm just stupid, what if I imagined it, what if I'm just desperate and this is a total stranger,_ but then you feel one of his arms kind of awkwardly encircle your back and pat you like an alien who's never heard of hugging before, and nope, that's definitely Riku.

"I knew you would make it through," Riku says, except he really doesn't sound like he did.

You thought... you thought that even if this happened someday, it wouldn't be this _fast._ Like there was going to be some horrible, lonely journey first, and you'd go day after day _(week after week)_ feeling more and more desperate and hopeless and... and...

And you just hug him, and cry like a little kid.

"Aww. You don't see that every day," the girl with the braid says from somewhere behind you, which, like, maybe that's comforting for her, but it's kind of the opposite for you?

Eventually you reluctantly let go of Riku, trying really hard to remind yourself he probably won't disappear again the second you do. He turns away for a second and raises his arm, doing something to his face that you can't see, then turns back.

"How long have you been here, Riku?" He shrugs.

"Not sure. It hasn't been very long. How about you?"

"I dunno, an hour or something. But I got, uh..." You're about to explain the whole voucher thing, and then you decide that maybe somebody else could just do that. "Actually, you should just talk to her, probably?"

"Sure. Wait for me outside, then."

You're not sure why that's necessary, but it's fine. Riku always has to find a way to make things a little bit weird.

* * *

A couple minutes of failing to get that stupid friendly dog to leave you alone later, and Riku re-emerges from CID'S REPAIRS, looking surprisingly calm about... well, about everything.

"So where are we headed?" You ask, wrestling your wallet chain out of Pluto's slobbery grasp again. "A hotel or something?" Riku shakes his head.

"Come on, Sora, we're in a whole new world! I want to go see the sights!"

He sounds... really, really happy. Maybe the happiest you've heard him sound in a long time, excited in a way he at _least_ never lets anybody see. And... you know what? He has a point. Now that you're not alone, exploring actually might be kinda fun.

"...Yeah. Yeah, let's do it!" You try to look as confident as you wish you were. Riku grins.

"All right then. First order of business: checking out the town square." He immediately heads down the steps toward the scattered little half-crowd of sad people, and you follow close behind.

He stops, suddenly.

"What the..." What is he looking at? Oh, jeez, right. The palm tree. "No way. That's impossible."

"I think pieces of worlds just... end up here," you say, taking advantage of this rare chance to know more things than he does. "After they... y'know."

"...Right. Sure. Why not." He shakes his head a little, obviously thrown off his game, and the two of you continue to explore.

Traverse Town is _really, really _weird, you realize pretty much instantly. Like, it's so much weirder than you thought, even after meeting Baloo. There are so many different people that it's overwhelming, and more than that, there are so many different _kinds_ of people.

That kid is just a chicken. Like, a chicken, with wings and everything. You're pretty sure a fairy just flittered around a corner and disappeared, and nobody else seems to think that's special. And over there in the open-air restaurant, there's a girl having lunch with, uh, a lion?

Not, like... a lion man, or anything. Just a lion. It's not wearing clothes, either, because it's a lion. It's kind of awkwardly propped up with its rear haunches on a chair, talking animatedly (somehow?), and as you watch, it kinda clumsily bats at the drink on its side of the table, and takes a sip from a straw... _somehow._ The girl learns forward, smiling almost dreamily, and like, wait...

"Is that girl on a _date_ with that lion? Can she does that? Like, can a girl date a guy, even if he's a lion?" Riku turns to look, too. Then he rolls his eyes.

"They're both girls, Sora. Did traveling to another world mess up your brain somehow?"

"What? How the heck can you even tell?" Is he just making that up? It's a _lion._ Lions are one of those animals that are only real in stories anyway, it's not like Riku's ever met one.

"Sora, she doesn't have a mane. Get your head in the game already."

You guess he's right, now that you're thinking about it. Huh.

"Wow, I'm glad they didn't hear me, then. Here I was thinking they were on a _date_ or something. Whoops."

Riku stares for a second, then gives you that Look that says 'I'm super smart and know something you don't, but I'm Riku so I won't explain it, not even if you beg me to.'

"Come on, dumbass. Follow me, I want to go get a better view of the town."

* * *

Riku immediately ducks into a spooky alley, and then he starts climbing a big stone wall. You follow him after just a second's worth of hesitation, hauling yourselves up and up, hopping over onto the roof of a nearby store, and then from that roof to another, higher one where you probably won't be seen, looking down at the sort-of-bustling streets below.

It's kinda like something out of a dream, or one of those really surreal kids' movies Riku always said probably got made while the writers were on drugs. Everything is shrouded in a gentle, endless night, but all the lights of the city spread out below, sparkling and winding through whimsical streets and avenues, and the air is chilly and bracing and full of strange smells.

Watching people scurry around far below you is fun, especially 'cause you can still tell that a lot of them are weird and not at all human, but you're up high enough that you can't tell if any of them have depression.

"Hey Riku," you say, "You seem way less weirded out by all the, like... animal people."

"I guess," he says, sort of indifferently. "It just doesn't seem that unusual, somehow. I think... maybe the world that I was born in might have been more like that, too." He pauses for a second, thinking. "Well, maybe not quite like this. Something like fox people or whatever makes sense, but I have to admit the bears and lions caught me off-guard."

"Yeah, that makes sense. I wonder why we didn't have anybody like that on Destiny Islands."

"Maybe our part of the universe was a lot more human," Riku says, looking up at the stars. "It sounds like Traverse Town is special, somehow. Like... it must attract things from all over the place, not just locally."

"...We're a really long way from home, aren't we? Like, even for world travelers."

"...Yeah," Riku says quietly. "I think that's a pretty safe bet."

* * *

After that you drop back down to street level and get back to exploring, looking at all the weird restaurants and businesses. There are stores selling things you've never even heard of before. There are stores that just sell _weapons,_ like, real ones, to anybody who has the munny. You even glance in the window of the store that's just called 'ITEM,' and you're pretty sure all the employees are ducks.

Speaking of ducks, there's a store selling some old TVs that are turned on - who knows to what stations, though - and one of them is playing some kind of romantic drama where all the actors are just ducks wearing clothes. Ducks dressed like businessmen, ducks dressed like actors, ducks dressed like movie stars in bright red duck lipstick.

"Why is that show just full of _ducks,"_ you mumble a little nervously. Riku snorts.

"Sora, not every TV show in the universe has to be about you, alright? Don't be that guy."

After that, while you're trying to start working on a mental map of the streets around the square, Riku wants to race you places. He's so much more energetic today than you're used to. It's kinda tiring to keep up with, but... it makes you really happy, too.

He wins, of course, even though you're equally unfamiliar with the shortcuts around here, but it's fun, and you run and run until you're both leaning up against a brick wall somewhere, out of breath and laughing, and a couple of fairies smoking cigarettes in a nearby alley give you dirty looks.

Every so often you catch a glimpse of Pluto somewhere in a crowd, or lurking around a corner, or being distracted from following you by a small animal or an interesting shrub, and once or twice when you let your guard down he sneaks right up on you and gets you by the pants again.

"What is up with that dog, Sora?" Riku asks finally. You just shrug.

"I don't know. He's been following me since I woke up and he keeps on yanking me around."

Riku looks thoughtful at that, but it's not like he has any answers.

* * *

You wander back to the shops again, looking more closely now as your confidence grows. 'ITEM' has a lot of crazy stuff in there - potions and other medical supplies just sold over the counter instead of by prescription, bracelets and necklaces and earrings that claim to be enchanted with all kinds of weird powers, piles of shining crystals that the shop owners clearly assumed were so obviously whatever they are that they didn't need an explanation.

You also peek into a weapon store. There's a wide variety of weapons, too, from swords to spears to axes to shields to rods and staves to throwing stars to whips to weird machines you don't even recognize. For some reason you get the feeling Riku understands what more of them are than you do.

"Hey, you don't think there are any monsters on this world, right?" You ask Riku nervously. "I mean, isn't it a little weird that they're just selling weapons to anybody who wants them? There's gotta be a reason for that."

"...I don't know," he says, after a long moment spent in thought. "But there must be more problems here than we're aware of. If just being full of refugees made a population this downtrodden, Destiny Islands would have showed some signs of that, too."

You don't really like thinking about that. You want to believe everyone here is just sad from losing worlds, losing friends, losing family, because at least that means the loss is over and done with. Shouldn't people who lose everything at least get to keep their second chance?

_("And if the world can just end on me... end all over again... I just... I want out.")_

There must be a better explanation. There _must_ be.

"...Maybe we should buy swords sometime soon," Riku says, and if you had about ten times more munny on you, you'd probably agree with him.

* * *

You definitely don't have the kind of munny you need to buy swords _(and do you even need one? What happened to that key, anyway?)_, but you're not completely broke yet, either, so Riku ends up lightening the mood a little by taking you to an interesting-looking ice cream store.

"Wow, I don't even know what some of these flavors are," you say to nobody in particular, looking through row after row of colorful, unfamiliar packaging. "I've never even heard of a grombleberry. Is that a real word?"

"I guess it is if you live in Traverse Town. Huh, _sea salt?_ Really? I got enough ocean back home, thanks." Riku shakes his head in disgust. "Wow. There are too many options. I think we might both have to get two."

"Alright, yeah. Then I'm gonna try out grombleberry," you say. Riku raises one eyebrow, which you've never been able to do. "What? We're exploring another world! I wanna have a new experience!"

"You know what? You're right," Riku says. "In that case... what the hell is a _peach?_ That can't be real. I'm trying that one just out of spite."

Both of you pick something safer that you already like for your second ice creams; you go for birthday cake and Riku gets double chocolate fudge, as usual.

You sit outside under a weird, kinda spooky tree, eating your ice cream slowly and people-watching. Your grombleberry tastes kinda... purple, maybe? Well, you guess it tastes like grombleberries, and you guess that's pretty alright. Riku is a little disappointed by how "girly" his peach ice cream ends up tasting, but he still eats the whole thing anyway.

This really is fun, though. It's nice. It's exciting seeing all these new things, even if it's also a little scary and overwhelming.

...You just wish more of your friends were alive to see them, too.

* * *

**(kairi)**

You wake up a small thing, pressed between cobblestones. You try to turn around, to roll onto your back and look at the sky, but you realize you don't have a back to roll onto.

You're sinking, now, into the road. No... not sinking, but folding up, folding in on yourself. Too insubstantial to stay in one place.

The tip of your finger, or something like a finger, the thing at the end of what might once have been a hand, stretches out at the end like a string, trailing far, far away.

Someone else's sky is staring down at you, an ocean of eyes suspended in the black forever, and you realize dimly that you are far, far away from anything that might be home.

...If you follow the string, maybe you'll become real again, you think to yourself, vague like twists in a rising plume of steam.

So you follow the string into town, drifting like scraps of paper on the wind.

It carries you past people, places, things, all in the periphery of your mind for short distant instants. Through streets, under canopies, between trees. To a wall reaching into the sky, and the gate set into it, and beneath the cracks at the bottom.

There, things are different. Emptier. Lacking, like you. Monsters stalk the ruined avenues, screaming miserably, begging for light.

A man and a woman are here, locked in battle with these monsters you somehow recognize. He strikes with a cold fury, eyes peering desperately from behind an expressionless iron mask. She fires strange weapons, deft and flowing across the cobblestones, alert behind the painted image of a warm smile.

The monsters can't see you, anymore. They don't want you, don't even want your light. You watch the battle, and distantly you wish you could help, but you can't even touch them.

_((((nothing left to give / how disgraceful / the least of its kind))))_

You wish them good luck and continue on. Ahead, through further twists of stone and dead lamps, you find a grate in the waterway, and let yourself fade enough to slip through.

Beneath, struggling to have a shape again, to grow new eyes, you sink into the dark water, not real enough to swim.

Far, far below, a fish wearing tiny glasses on its little nose cuts through the black to stare at you, or maybe a Fish, or a man crammed into the shape of one.

"No, no, that won't do at all," he says, shaking out his fins. "You must _remember_ what you wish to be, whether or not you've been it before. Wanting will never be enough."

Remember... but how can you do that? You're not sure you remember things that _did_ happen, let alone things that could.

Only, as soon as you've had the thought, you realize you're different. Not a Fish, or a fish, or the shape of anything, but your almost-self is small and fast and graceful.

You zip along through the water before you can think to thank him, soaring along currents until you feel yourself becoming you again, and you paddle toward land.

Back on someone else's street, you see a scary girl with a wicked black star in the palm of her hand walk into an alley in one set of clothes and come back out in another. You don't want her to look at you, even though she can't, so you turn and run as fast as you can.

A few streets down are more people, walking a gray road side by side. A Dog, shining like polish on a shield, and a Duck, glowing like a flare in the night sky.

The Duck looks so much like the ice cream man, except younger, and you miss the ice cream man, so you follow them down the road. They're going the same way you are, anyway, and you have nothing better to do.

Once, you step on the Duck's shadow by mistake; he quacks and stumbles like someone caught hold of his cape, although he isn't wearing one. Looking closer, you see a third shadow, faint, in the space between them.

You try walking on that shadow, but it feels bad, sticking to the bottoms of your not-quite-feet like wet sand.

_((((no respect / none at all / what a shameful shackle you are))))_

You follow them to the town square, trying your best not to step on anyone's shadow, or on no one's shadow, either. The Duck and the Dog talk, but you can't make out the words, even when you're very close by.

Eventually they stop in front of a little shop with four blazing letters hung over its door, and the Duck takes a moment to peer inside. You stop too, to covet some of the shining, wonderful, magical things, but the door is closed and you don't know how to be flat enough to wiggle under, and when you look again the Duck and the Dog are gone.

You drift up a nearby staircase, clinging to its banister, toward another shop with a bright sign, this one longer. Someone walks through you, shivering a little, and opens the door, and you follow them in.

It's warm and soft inside. The other person walks up to a cozy little counter, talking to the girl who's standing behind it; she smiles an easy smile as she responds. When she thinks no one's looking, she leans on her staff a little, and the red flowers buried in her stomach light up, revealing the roots that burrow into her muscles.

You drift by her, back into a workshop full of grease and crystal and hot metal and pots of colorful flowers, and an old man whose skin glints like steel when the light catches it just right.

He puts the finishing touches on some gadget you don't recognize, then stares blankly out the closed window. A drop of oil runs down his cheek.

The old man fishes a cigarette from his pocket and lights it. The girl from the front room leans through the door and calls back to him.

"I told you not to do that in front of me and the plants," she says irritably.

"I'll smoke wherever the hell I want, girl," he growls, but he stubs the cigarette out anyway. When you turn back to watch her again, she looks like somebody else.

You want to stay here, where it's warm and safe, but you have to ride the smoke out of the chimney in the brief moment it's still there. As you rise high above the town, you wave and wave, even though no one will see, because you want them to know.

And you look down at everything, and you see all these lights and all these people, and you realize that if you followed any one of them they would have their own home and their own story, and you had a friend once who could be friends with everybody, and now you think you understand it.

You understand, because each and every one one of these people, you love them just for being born, and you miss them all so much you could burst, even if they make you a little jealous.

Floating up, you settle in the sky near a tall roof overlooking everything, where two men wrapped in darkness stand, watching the same city, the same people.

One of them waves.

"Well, well, look what the light dragged in," the man with the eyepatch says. "Seems to me like maybe somebody's overslept. You ever think about waking up?"

"Oh boy, here we go again," says the man who doesn't cry anymore. "You know, I can never tell if you're messing with me or if you're finally going senile."

"As if. You know, it's not polite to ignore a guest."

The man who doesn't cry anymore sighs and rolls his eyes. Then he talks to you, instead, although he's looking several feet in the wrong direction.

"Alright, I guess I can play along. How's it going, invisible buddy?"

But the man with the eyepatch is still looking you right in the eyes you don't have, and it makes the skin you don't have prickle with goosebumps, so you let yourself float higher, and then you finally open your eyes.

* * *

You remember your name.

You remember _his_ name.

Everything is blurry, like it's on the other side of a fogged-up pane of glass, the world slowing down and speeding up again every time you lose focus.

Sora and Riku sit in the shadow of a crooked tree, laughing, throwing the tacky remains of ice-cream sticks at each other, and your heart hurts, deep inside.

_((((petty / vile / love has never looked like this))))_

You're... still not real. Still not really here. But now you can look down and see your own knobby knees and stick legs. You could've been anything, but you're still you.

Sora and Riku talk more as you watch them. Their voices are distorted, hard to follow. Sora is different when he's with Riku. You want to look, because he's Sora, but you don't want to look, because he isn't _your_ Sora.

You're getting awfully slow and weighty for something that doesn't really take up any space. Harder to move, harder to think. They're okay, and that's good to know.

...But maybe it's okay to go back to sleep, now.

Goodnight, Kairi.

Goodnight, Sora.

* * *

**(sora)**

"Whoaaaa, Riku, check it out, there's a '_microwave'_ in here! I don't even know what that is!"

"...Sora, is this your first time being in a hotel?" Riku looks like he's trying not to laugh while you run around your hotel room looking at all the weird stuff in here.

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be? Whoa, tiny shampoo and fancy tiny soap! This is awesome!"

Riku gives a look that says plainly that he has no idea what's awesome about tiny soap, but he's basically glad you're happy. He kicks off his shoes and sits down on the hotel bed, sitting up against the wall, then picks up a remote control from a nearby table and turns on the TV.

"I wonder what channels they get out here," he says. "Hopefully more than seven."

"Why would they need more than seven? If you've got that much stuff to watch, most of it should probably just be movies." You struggle with yourself for a moment and successfully resist the urge to squeeze out some tiny shampoo just to see if shampoo is weird here.

Eventually you get a little bored of exploring a very small hotel room, and plop onto the bed next to Riku, who's surfing through a _lot_ more than seven channels.

"Wow. Some of these are sorted by world of origin. That's crazy," Riku says, totally enraptured. "So they're picking up signals from other _worlds,_ somehow..."

For a second you wonder if maybe they're getting anything from Destiny Islands. Then you remember that nobody is getting anything from Destiny Islands, ever again.

"What kind of world name is 'Zootopia?' It sounds like somewhere you'd pay fifty munny each to take your kids." But he clicks over to the channel anyway. "Oh, they're all animals, except they're standing up like people. I mean, like humans, I guess? That weasel's dressed like a chef, so he's definitely a person."

You watch for at least half an hour, commenting on the increasingly bizarre movie. At first it just seems like a pretty normal drama, but then it gets really messed up! Animals are eating each other, and the predators are all wearing shock collars that go off if they get too excited. It might be horror, or maybe it's just horrifying to you.

The special effects are actually not that good, and you can tell there's some kind of social commentary that's totally going over both your heads, but it's still hard to put it down, although your conversation eventually drifts off topic.

"I wonder if you can have a sword job here," Riku mumbles. "Like, a job where you use a sword." All the animal violence and incomprehensible politics are starting to make him a little stupider than usual. "A sword job."

"Maybe? I mean, probably, right? If you can just buy a sword at a store, people must be using them for something." You really don't know if you'd _want_ a sword job. You kinda think maybe chopping off one arm was more than you wanted to do in your entire life.

"Yeah... we should lie and tell everyone we're adults."

"Huh?! Why?" Where did that even come from?

"Sora, they're not going to know any better. Some of these people are lions. You could probably tell them you're fifty and they wouldn't bat an eye. Or a mane."

"Yeah, maybe, but... why?"

"They're not gonna let us have a sword job at fifteen, Sora," Riku explains patiently.

"I'm fourteen," you say, looking down at the bed.

"Then you understand why it's important even better than I do. We can be as old as we want, Sora, nobody knows us. We're free! We can do anything. We can _be_ anything."

You're not quite sure about that. Somehow you're pretty sure that no matter what you tell anybody, you'll still be Sora.

"Well, let's figure that out _after_ we find out if they have sword jobs," you say, and leave out the part about figuring out if you want one.

A couple of minutes later, Riku mutes the TV.

"...Sora," he says, "Do you know what happened to Kairi?"

...Oh. Well... you guess it probably is time to talk about this, huh?

"Kinda," you say, struggling for a way to put it into words. "But also not really. I tried to grab her hand, and she just disappeared."

"Wait, you found her?!" He looks shocked for some reason you can't even begin to guess at. "What do you mean, disappeared?"

"I mean, one second she was there, and then I touched her, and she just... wasn't anywhere. She's not... she's not _gone,_ right?"

"No," he says. "No, she can't be. It wouldn't even make sense. I'm not saying any of this makes sense, but people don't just die without being killed."

You just nod. Stare at the silent TV. Bite your lip.

"Riku, did you tell Rinoa to die for me?" You ask it all at once, in a rush, before the moment passes and you lose the courage to do it for the rest of your whole life.

Riku stares at you for, like, five seconds. He swallows, and then finally looks you in the eye.

"She volunteered," he said. "I could have stopped her. But I didn't."

You feel kind of like you've been punched in the gut, even though you honestly already knew. Did you... _want_ him to lie to you? No, of course not, that's not right. It just... it's...

It's hard, is all.

"I feel bad," Riku says quietly, "But I don't regret it."

"...I know," you say, because 'I forgive you' is too much to stomach, and also because you're not actually sure if there's anything to forgive.

"Do you hate me?" This time, he looks away as he says it.

"Of course I don't," you say, and you're glad that at the very least you know _that's_ the truth.

There's a long pause, again.

"Sora, I don't want to settle here. In Traverse Town, I mean. I'm fine with staying for now, but someday I'm going to want to move on."

How can he know that well enough to say it so confidently? How can anyone know himself that well?

...You're not even sure if it's _possible_ to move on from this place.

"When I leave," he says slowly, "do you think maybe you'd want to-"

Suddenly, somebody knocks on the door. Riku jolts up, grabs the remote control, and shuts off the TV for no apparent reason. The two of you walk over to the door together. You're not sure why _you're_ nervous, but if Riku's nervous, maybe you should be?

He opens the door maybe a third of the way. Out in the hall, there's a short black-haired girl in some kind of uniform. She looks kinda like she's dressed to give somebody a tour in a museum, with a sort of professional-looking dress and a matching hat.

"Hi there, and welcome to Traverse Town! My name is Aeris Gainsborough, and I'll be your tour guide this evening." She blasts you with a huge, weirdly toothy smile.

"Uh... _tour_ guide?" You guess you were right about that outfit, at least. Go you.

"Yep! For the resettlement program, of course! I'm here to show you around your brand new home."

"No," Riku says, and moves to close the door. Aeris wedges her foot in the gap, still smiling.

"Aw, come on Riku, it could be fun." He stares at you incredulously, like you just said going to the dentist is your favorite way to spend a Saturday.

"Sora, we don't need a... _tour._ We did that ourselves. An hour ago."

"Yeah, but we're new here! Who knows what cool stuff we might've missed?" And if you go on a tour, then you'll be out of this room, and if you're out of this room, you'll be out of the conversation you were just having.

"Yeah," Aeris says brightly. "Traverse Town is a wonderful place, and it's just _full_ of wonderful little secrets. I promise you won't regret it."

"Riku, _please?_ If you don't go, I'm still going to." One way or another, you are taking a break from that conversation. You've decided this and you're not going back on it.

Riku sighs, a long, pained sigh that takes him at least two seconds to finish.

"..._Fine,"_ he says bitterly. "But you owe me."

* * *

The tour is... kinda erratic, though. She just keeps zipping around from street to street, and it feels like you're walking way farther between each stop than you actually need to.

"That's the item store! If you're looking for just about anything useful, that's your place."

She leads you between landmarks, some of them cool, some of them weird, and some of them inexplicable, all with the same toothy grin.

"And this is the old Gizmo Shop! It's broken right now, and it'll probably always be broken, but we love it anyway. Oh, and sometimes there are Heartless in there."

"Wait, there are _what?"_ You're not sure what that means, but you think you might have heard that word somewhere else today, and also it actually sounds pretty bad.

"Yep! So watch out for that. They'll get'cha!"

It feels like in no time at all, you and Riku are both pretty worn out from trying to keep up. Aeris is doing fine, though, and eventually you realize she's not actually walking as much as you are; she keeps sending you between streets and just kind of standing there, keeping line of sight.

Maybe she has to give tours to a bunch of people, so it's better to conserve her stamina?

"And that's Leon! He's, uh... Leon. Hi, Leon! _Around that corner. Go. Go."_ A tall, kind of intimidating looking guy glances at her in confusion as she yanks on your sleeve and hustles you to the next location.

You don't even know what time it is anymore. At this point you've pretty much figured out and accepted that it's always night-time here, even if that's pretty disturbing, and it's not like you wear a watch or anything.

"Okay, we're finally coming up on our last stop, boys! This one's a real doozy!"

Disoriented and exhausted, the two of you follow her onto a dim side street in a relatively empty part of town.

"You go first, buddy," Aeris says, kind of shoving you deeper down the street.

And then, suddenly, something cold and sharp is pressed up against your throat.

"Wh... whoa, what," you sputter, freezing up.

_"Don't move a goddamn muscle,"_ Aeris hisses. One of arms is pinning yours to your stomach helplessly, and the other one is definitely probably holding a knife against your actual neck.

"You piece of... let him _go,"_ Riku yells.

"Quiet down there, tall dark and broody," she spits. "You make one false move and your boyfriend here gets it."

"Uh, I really don't wanna get it," you mumble, a little too shocked to take this seriously.

"Now hand over every last munny you've got." Wait, wait, is this like... actually happening right now? Wow, you really didn't see _this_ coming.

"Is this a _mugging?"_ You ask, feeling like you're in a really stupid dream.

"You bet your sweet little ass it is. Now shut the hell up before I gut you like a fish!"

"We don't have any munny, we're _refugees,"_ Riku lies pretty convincingly. To be fair, you don't have enough munny to do anything important with it.

_"Bullshit,"_ Aeris says through gritted teeth. Riku shakes his head.

"No, uh, really, we're like... fifteen," you say half-accurately. "I wasn't really carrying my allowance to the end of the world?"

"Dammit," she hisses again. "_Useless._ Ugh." The knife presses a little tighter. It stings just a little bit, so it's definitely a real knife. "Fine, then. Ration cards, hotel passes, whatever you got. Fork 'em over."

"We need those to... live?" you say hesitantly, and then wince as you feel the blade parting your skin ever-so-slightly.

"I think you need that neck to live a little more, buddy-boy," she says, without a trace of sympathy.

"...Fine," Riku says, gritting his teeth.

Twenty seconds later, your hotel passes and ration cards and everything else have disappeared into her pockets. Everything other than the thirty munny you accidentally left in the other pocket instead of your wallet, and however much munny Riku hopefully has stashed somewhere.

"Cool!" She chirps, suddenly cheerful. "Great doin' business with ya, kids. Have a nice night!"

And before either of you can try to stop her, she flits out onto a larger street, and when you round the corner she's long gone.

"...Welcome to Traverse Town," you mutter under your breath.

Riku punches a wall and immediately regrets it.

* * *

**(riku)**

"Hey Riku, check out this cool tarp," Sora says half-heartedly. You sigh and take a look. It... sure is a tarp, and as far as tarps go, it could probably be worse.

"Great, well... Maybe we _won't_ freeze to death."

"Aw, I don't think we'd freeze to death anyway, it's not _that_ cold."

"Not yet. It's still five in the afternoon, somehow. For all we know it's going to get even darker." Honestly, you don't expect that. If there's no daylight at all, then there's probably no cycle of darker and lighter anyway, but right now you're just not willing to rule out anything terrible that might happen.

A couple minutes later you've cleared some dust and random stuff out from the room you're hiding in deep inside this abandoned house, and you sit on the floor together up against a wall with the tarp over your legs.

"This is really bad, actually," Sora says. You nod wearily.

"...It is _too_ that cold," you mumble. Now that you're not moving around constantly, you can really feel the chill of that eternal just-before-midnight. "Hmm... I'm going to light a fire. Crack that window a little so we don't choke and die on the smoke?"

Sora does it, and you gather up a little pile of the least gross abandoned trash you can find and set it in front of you. He stares at you quizzically.

"How are you gonna light a fire? You don't have a lighter. Or, like... flint... or... anything."

"I have my ways," you say. "Hey, what's that over in that corner?"

Sora turns to look. You quickly reach your hand out toward the trash, palm open... and you think about that girl, Aeris, and how angry it made you to realize she was betraying you, and how much you wanted to hurt her when she put that knife to Sora's throat, and you _focus._

A little black flash pulses in front of your hand, and the trash bursts into flame, merrily crackling away.

"I don't see any... whoa, Riku, how'd you do that?" Sora's eyes are wide with child-like wonder.

"Trade secret," you smirk. He rolls his eyes.

"You suck," Sora says, but he smiles a little as he leans forward to let the trash fire warm his hands up.

"Are you hungry?" you ask, already knowing the answer's going to be the same as yours.

"...Yeah, kinda. Are you really out of munny like you said?"

"Not quite," you admit. "I think I've got sixty left, or maybe a little less."

"Nice! I have thirty somewhere, so that's gotta be enough to buy _some_ food, right? I mean... at least enough for one night?"

"Yeah," you say. "At least enough for one night. Tell you what, you hold down the fort here. I'm going to go get some air and find us something to eat."

Maybe if you're lucky, you'll run into that Aeris girl again and you can give her a piece of your mind. Either way, you need to burn off some energy before you start getting short with Sora for no reason.

"Alright," Sora says, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed behind his head. "...Be careful out there, okay?"

"I always am," you say, even though that's _demonstrably_ untrue.

* * *

You spend half an hour trying to decide what's worth eating, and eventually you settle on two packages of raw hot dogs and one big water bottle you can share and probably refill from one of the handful of dubious-looking wells nearby, or, you know. The sewer. That would suit you pretty well at this point.

Sora's excited about the hot dogs, at least. You gather some sticks from outside and impale the hot dogs on them, roasting them over the trash fire, which Sora's actually done a good job of keeping alive.

"Hey, maybe this isn't gonna be... the _worst,"_ Sora says hopefully. "I mean, yeah, this is really bad, just terrible, but it's also kinda like camping! We're roasting hot dogs! Hanging out! In a whole new _world!"_

"...Yeah," you say, and you're a little surprised that you actually do agree. This is bad. It's really bad and you don't like a lot of it. But you're also not sitting in your room with a bookshelf pushed in front of the door because there's no lock, trying to pretend you can't hear Mom throwing empty beer cans at the wall and yelling at no one.

The hot dogs are good. They even taste like hot dogs, which is unexpected considering you're on another world. Maybe some things are just the same wherever you go.

After they're all gone you kill time talking about interesting things you've seen, and people you met, and how you're definitely going to track down one Aeris Gainsborough tomorrow and kick her ass. If you just ask around, _somebody_ will have to know her.

Eventually the conversation winds down a little. You stoke the fire one last time, not really expecting it to keep burning overnight, and you pull the tarp up high like a blanket.

"You're hogging the tarp," Sora says instantly, elbowing you in the side.

"You're spreading your limbs all over the place like a moron," you counter, reluctantly giving him another two inches, but there's not exactly a whole lot of tarp to go around.

"...Maybe we could do Pirate Encounter again," Sora says sleepily. "Make some munny that way."

It's not the worst idea you've ever heard. Except, no, wait. You won't have Kairi to hold the camera, and you won't _have_ Kairi's camera, and you won't have Kairi to paint anyone's faces and be publicly likable, and you don't have any supplies whatsoever because all your belongings are dead and gone with your world.

"...If... When we find Kairi again," you mumble, "I really have to apologize to her."

"Huh? What for?"

"I just realized Kairi was seriously carrying Pirate Encounter. Think about it, Sora. She took the pictures, she provided the camera, she painted faces, she did most of the advertising, she was better at talking to parents... The only thing she couldn't do was the swordfighting, except you talked her through it just fine, so I'm sure with half an hour of practice she wouldn't have needed us for anything."

"Wow," Sora says. "You've got a point. Without Kairi, Pirate Encounter would have sunk the second it left the shore. I guess we'll have to think of something else."

You fall into a quiet, tired silence after that. Sora shifts over a little, trying to steal more of your tarp, and ends up with his shoulder kind of pressed against yours. You'd push him off, obviously, except it really _is_ cold in here, and he's a source of heat, so... you'll have to tolerate it, at least for a little while.

"Maybe we have everything we need," you say, without really meaning to. "Well, not everything, but... maybe we don't need as many things as we thought we did."

"...Maybe," Sora says after a long pause.

The two of you sit there, huddled like the homeless people you are under a tarp in the warm glow of burning garbage, and you don't think about Kairi, not even a little bit. A few minutes later, you hear Sora snoring.

And a few minutes after that, you're asleep.

* * *

**A/N: **The human girl and the lion girl are on their first date tonight, but it won't be their last. Even at the bottom of the universe, love finds a way.


End file.
